What if Pain Never Happened

My son recently had a quick trip to Urgent Care.  It was a really bad time for him to have to go there, all of our schedules had to change, it was very inconvenient.  But the reason he had to go was due to a pain in his abdomen.  As it turned out, it was a very simple solution and could be resolved easily. 

But, what if he wouldn’t have had the pain; it would have gotten worse until something really bad happened.  The pain was an indication that something must be done.

Also true with emotional pain.  When you cover up emotional pain with drugs or alcohol, or watching TV, going to movies or playing on the internet…..in an effort to avoid the pain…..well, you are just allowing the “wound” to fester and become infected.  You must address the issue as soon as possible or it will just make things worse.

Emotions control your thinking, behavior and actions, including your physical body.  Emotions that are not felt and released but buried within the body can cause serious illness, including cancer, arthritis, and many types of chronic illnesses.  Negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, negativity, frustration and depression cause chemical reactions in your body that are very different from the chemicals released when you feel positive emotions such as happy, content, loved, accepted.

What does all of this mean?  Face the pain and deal with the underlying cause, don’t ignore.

Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty. But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble; soon they disappear, and we fly away.

 Psalm 90:10

Dear Lord, give me the strength to face the pain of my life.  I want to face it head-on, not avoid the pain.

Some people’s pain is evident, others, not so much.

I met a girl recently that was in a serious car accident, she has lasting injuries.  When people see her, they feel compassion for her, due to her injuries.  They should.  Her pain is evident, you can see it.  I’ve also been in a serious car accident, I have no injuries.

Both of us lost our parents in the car accidents.   The pain we have from this loss is not evident when looking at us.  We don’t wear a sign that says “I’m hurting over this great loss!”   

Many times you will see a clearly disheveled person and think to yourself that person has pain, they have to, or so you think.  But then you see a lively, seemingly happy go lucky weatherman named Don Harmon on the news and you think, “He’s got it all together and he is so happy!” 

We all know what happened to Don Harmon, he committed suicide.  He was dying on the inside, he was full of pain.  The turmoil overcame him so fully that he made the unthinkable decision to leave his young daughter and wife behind.   Most people could not see his pain, he hid it incredibly well.

Don’t ever think you can tell how happy or sad a person is just by appearances.  Just because a person has a physical ailment doesn’t mean they aren’t happy and just because a person is smiling and happy-go-lucky doesn’t mean they really are.

So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

 Romans 8:6

Lord, help me to be compassionate to everyone I meet, help me to understand the pain some people may be experiencing even if I don’t understand their pain.

Without the Pain, how would we know?

Pain is a good thing; it tells us that something isn’t right.  It can be your body or your emotions, but you should always listen.   Pain is an indication and it’s very, very necessary.  Without it, we would ruin our bodies. 

There is a condition called CIP, it’s a rare disorder where a person feels no pain.  This is considered a deadly disease, because the feeling of pain is so very necessary.

You might think that not being able to feel pain would be a blessing. No tears, no painkillers, no lingering aches. But really, not being able to feel pain is dangerous. Pain tells you when you've pushed too far, when you're in a situation you need to get out of and when something is terribly wrong. If you step on a piece of glass or bang your head too hard, you know you need medical attention. But what if you never felt it?  HowStuffWorks

The worst thing you can do when you have physical pain, is to cover it up before you fully understand the cause.  Or, cover up the on going pain so that you damage the effected area even more, without even knowing. So what does that mean to us:  listen to our body and emotions?    

Look to God for answers, God can be hiding at the doctor’s office or a therapist’s office.  Or He can simply be hiding in the bible, or a prayer.  But you must take the time to look Him; these things do not just go away on their own.

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Hebrews 4:16

Dear Lord, give me the courage to ask You for help.  I am ready to put my faith in God and whom ever he leads me to.  Please, give me direction.

Sometimes small pain is to avoid bigger pain

I’ve always said sometimes we learn our lesson through a small painful situation to avoid a much larger painful situation.  This makes me happy for the small lessons.  

Let me give you an example:  you hire a contractor for a very small job, knowing you may hire him for a very large job.  He takes the down payment for the small job and skips town.  In this situation, I would say, “Hey, at least we learned our lesson before losing a large amount of money!”

Another example:  Last summer my son fell backwards off of a four wheeler.  He did a back flip off of it from a sitting position.  He was fine after a few mommy and daddy hugs.  I said, “Wow, we really learned our lesson on that one!”  I was so thankful everything happened the way it did, because we took extra precautions from then on to avoid a larger catastrophe.

So you see, you really can thank God for some painful situations and mean it.  Sometimes, it’s hard to put two and two together to come up with something positive, but really, there are times when there is no other way to look at it.  Meaning, in order to make sense of something you may have to realize you just learned a very valuable lesson.  You may never know what the BIG thing was that you avoided since you learned the smaller lesson, but really…….THAT’S OK!

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Dear Lord, thank you so much for giving me small lessons to avoid bigger pain.  Please, help me to recognize these lessons and learn.

  

Intuition

To wrap it up, embrace pain, you learn so much from it. It may be physical or emotional, but in either situation, your body or mind is telling you something.  I believe it to be God’s way of talking to you.  One translation uses the word “intuition” in the scripture shown above. 

The scripture above is God talking to Job after he endured countless and horrible injustices at the hand of the devil.  As God talks to Job, he is saying to him, “Who do you think gives you intuition?”

When you experience emotional pain and you feel compelled to “do something about it”, you must trust your intuition.

That is so unbelievably awesome; God really is that innermost, small voice inside of each one of us.  God actually said this to Job.    

We all know that God does not sit down with us every day and review our situations.  He doesn’t have a flow chart or project plan that gets updated each time we meet a milestone or change course.  PLEASE PEOPLE:  Spend time with God, learn to listen to Him in the only way he can communicate with us, WHILE WE ARE LISTENING!! 

If you spend time with Him, praying and reading the bible, then when  you have that intuition of what to do, and it lines up with the word of God, you can act on it with confidence.  

“Who has put wisdom in the innermost being
or given understanding to the mind?

Job 38:36

Thank you so much Lord for speaking to me and leading me to the right path.  I vow to spend time with you every day so our communication can be two way.  Thank you Lord.