“Don’t kill him, Lord. Just hurt him really bad.”
Kimberly Jones-Pothier recalls praying these words about her ex-husband. In her book When Your Bad Meets His Good, she recounts her season of feeling extreme hurt, anger and bitterness after her second divorce. She lost her business and had to move back in with her parents with her two sons in tow.
Her first divorce was forgivable, but with the second one came humiliation, especially within the Christian culture.
“The doctrine was simple: If you get divorced, you will go to hell on a Slip ‘N Slide. Not only was I divorced; I was penniless and moving back into my parents’ home,” Jones-Pothier says.
But through the healing process, God opened her eyes to what she really needed to be praying for.
Lord, Help Me Reveal My Pain
Jones-Pothier spent years not mentioning her first marriage—as though it never happened. But she felt God tugging on her to speak about it. From then on, she came to realize that healing begins with confession. In order to receive counsel and correction, she needed to be honest about her pain.
“I had to acknowledge that I had failed so many times and hurt so many people. Yes, it hurt, but it was those times of confession and repentance that gave me the strength to rise up and be the woman God had purposed me to be,” she says.
Lord, Keep Me From Causing Others Pain
Healed people heal others, and hurt people hurt others. Jones-Pothier felt this keenly during her season of struggle. One Saturday night, she stumbled home drunk into her parents’ house where she lived at the time. Instead of her dad condemning her, he showed patient love and said:
“I hope you don’t have a hangover in the morning, baby girl, because you are still leading worship. You are going to praise your way through.”
Jones-Pothier felt so much shame as she realized how her actions not only hurt her but also her family. She strove to take responsibility for her decisions and chose to glorify God in everything she does.
She says, “When my life fell apart, I realized that I desperately needed intimacy with Jesus Christ. My lack of intimacy with Him was affecting me and everyone around me. Faith, hope and love were either going to show up in my actions and relationships, or they weren’t. The latter prospect was not a good one. The wrong choice would hurt all of us for a very long time.”
Lord, Protect Me From Past Pain
When Jones-Pothier chose to leave her old life and devote herself to God, she realized she had to cut ties with people who hindered her spiritual walk.
“I cannot remember how many times I declared that I would make a change. Yet I didn’t. Instead, I would hang out with the same friends the very next day. I was connected by unholy soul ties that were destroying me and my family,” she says.
Prayer for protection means asking God for the strength to say no to toxic friends and yes to ones who will pray with you on your journey.
Jones-Pothier writes about her healing process in her book and how, by God’s grace, “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6b).
This article is based on When Your Bad Meets His Good: Find Purpose in Your Pain (Charisma House, 2018) by Kimberly Jones-Pothier. Jones-Pothier, known as “Real Talk Kim,” travels the world fulfilling her passion and purpose of “loving people back to life.” She is a wife, a mother, a pastor, a best‐selling author, an entertainer, and most importantly a worshipper after God’s own heart. Kim and her husband, Mark Pothier, are the senior pastors of Church of the Harvest in Fayetteville, Georgia. She finds fulfilling purpose in charity work and believes in the compassion of the Holy Spirit, delivering it to those who need it most. Pastor Kim has been featured on The Dr. Oz Show, Preachers of Atlanta, CNN, Nightline and numerous radio shows.
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