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If it Wasn't For The Pain

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 I could handle a lot of things if it wasn’t for the pain.  I could handle illness, at least a little better, if it wasn’t for the pain.  I never quite appreciate how wonderful normal feels until I do not feel normal.  A sore throat can slow me down, change my plans for the whole week. Then there is the pain that is not going to go away in a week.  The kind of pain that comes with loss. Loss of the illusion that life is fair and just and good, and moving on up the tier, the loss of someone you love.  

 

When someone dies they leave holes, and sometimes wounds.  Holes because of chores they did, meals they cooked, bills they paid, smiles their smile produced, and the compassion and empathy they uniquely brought to life.  Some holes are harder to fill than others. Ready made meals are easier to find than another friend. There is a part of every hole that, like an open wound, stings every time the wind blows.  The part where your heart received God’s love through the individual you loved and lost. Other loves will come; God’s love is limitless. But it will never come in this same unique way, to the same unique place you long it to fill, this side of Heaven.  If it could come that way again, you would not feel the pain, not the way you do. But since it cannot, you are left with a wound, and even though it might scab over with time, you know about the rawness that deep love creates when it is lost. 

 

I do not like the pain, and I especially do not like it for the people I love.  It is hard enough to feel your own pain, let alone knowing you can do nothing to prevent those you love from having to experience it.  We are mortal, we do not have a band-aid strong enough to shield the depths of love from the winds of loss. And while we cannot take the pain away, we can enter into it.  We can hug someone, not in band-aid like fashion, but in a willing-to-be-here-in-your-pain kind of way. We can pray, that the God of Mercy will provide grace every time the wind blows over our wounds.  We will never like the pain, but we do not have to be scared of it, not when the love that creates the capacity for such pain is greater than the pain itself. 

 

The world was once without pain, but then through disobedience came sin, and because of sin, pain.  The world is now fallen, there will always be loss, there will always be things we would rather not handle.  At the very least it makes us long for a day when there will be no more pain. For those in Christ, that day will come.  Meanwhile, do not try to handle the pain of a lifetime today. Do not even try to handle tonight’s pain, this afternoon. Endure the pain of the moment, and when you are not called to endure, stand by someone who is.  No matter how much one can handle, there is always pain which one cannot. May the pain draw us closer to the One with grace sufficient to endure it, the One preparing a place for His own, where pain shall be no more.    

 

“Behold the dwelling place of God is with man.  He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”  Revelation 21:3,4

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