
I’ve been mulling on this one for awhile. There are a myriad of kinds of pain: physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual…just to name a few. It is a sad reality of being human. The power it has over every individual is as unique as a snowflake. To simplify, the power it has over our trajectory, our path in life is multidimensional, based on the many choices we make in response to its continued presence in our lives. I’m not trying to sound confusing, its just that its complicated what pain, over a long period of time does to how we make our own unique footprint in the world. It can bring “good fruit” (how I define God given gifts and talents) to ourselves and others, or it can destroy those fruits meant to sustain our world and keep it evolving.
Pain, unchecked, is one of the most destructive powers out there. One, it doesn’t help you develop the talents and fulfill the purpose to which you were charged in this life. Second it leaves you vulnerable to those who would take advantage of said pain, only to advance a purpose that doesn’t’ help anyone, anywhere except to bring you deeper into the darkness, and give someone else more control over you, by false promises that scapegoating someone else will ease the pain, in whatever form it takes.
While I know this all sound nefarious, think about it…This world can’t move forward without functioning together. So I know I am not in this alone, I have to rely on others using their gifts and talents to continue to move us forward. And it is getting increasingly more difficult to do that when people are angry, bullies, violent, condemning and pointing the finger, and lying all the time. So, and I am no stranger to pain, I can only focus on how I can accept it as any other human must do, embrace ways to not allow it to become an impediment to my gifts and talents to bring good fruit, and to learn how to move forward in spite of it.
Jesus said:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves.30For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
I am taking him at his word…