Pain and Its Possibilities

The other day, my mom and I were discussing the past nine months of our lives.

Long before the world was overcome by the current pandemic, there was already much heaviness in our hearts.

By that point, we'd faced our grandparents' home burning down, losing loved ones and new chronic illness.

By the time COVID-19 came around, we'd already been living with a fair share of uncertainty, anxiety and overwhelming loss.

But I know we aren't the only ones.

The past few months have affected every human being living in the world differently - but they haven't been the first "wilderness seasons" we've all had to walk through.

We don't get to choose how or when pain will come to us.  We were never consulted on these issues.

The difficulties presented by worldwide disease have for many become just another thing to pack in the suitcase of things we don't have the ability to process yet.  We carry them with us everywhere we go.

When Jesus walked on this broken, beautiful earth - even He carried pain with Him.

The pain of seeing crowds "without a shepherd", witnessing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, when His dear friend Lazarus died, and upon facing His own inevitable death.

We are promised that in the New World, God will wipe away all tears and exchange the broken hearts and bodies of His people for wholeness.

But what about here on earth?

I wonder at the possibility of people carrying at least some form of their pain with them until death.  When my uncle passed away last November, his death tore open the wound in my heart from losing my grandma the year before.  Grief, said by some to be "love with no place to go", hangs on for longer than we think it may.

Perhaps Christians have a tendency to preach an "emotional prosperity gospel"?

Following Jesus does not mean we will no longer feel pain.  Rather, when we hand our lives over to Christ - what we receive is not immunity to pain - but an invitation to find comfort, hope and perspective within it.  Our eyes are now open wide to the world's condition - we are given eternity's view.  Especially during the current age, pain makes the headlines every day.

So what do we do with it?

How much of who we become as individuals and what directions our lives will take depends on how we handle the hurt in the world, in the hearts of others, and in our own souls?

Will we let ourselves fall into patterns of bitterness - of anger, impatience, selfishness, and intolerance of others?

Or should we spend our every waking moment cultivating peace, compassion, understanding, selflessness and a posture of humility before God and His people collective?

Will we let the lessons being taught by pain, by pandemics and isolation be wasted in self-pity?

Or shall we let the hurt that comes with living in a fallen world move our hearts toward His, and towards the hurting of the world?

The choice is ours.