I don’t get sick. Like
for real, I am NEVER sick. Never broke a
bone or had any serious injury. The only
time I have been to the hospital was to bring someone else who was sick or
injured. Okay, okay, that isn’t entirely
true. My children were all born in a hospital. Though I wasn’t sick or injured and my
children were all perfectly healthy, I desperately needed medication for the
pain of childbirth. Me and pain don’t work
well together. When I see pain of any
kind coming my way, I do everything I can to prevent it from crossing my
path. Childbirth, in my experience, has
been very painful even with all the modern medication the hospitals have on
hand. When I am in pain, all I want is
for the pain to stop. Immediately. But sometimes,
as with childbirth, it goes on and on and on; overstaying its welcome like that
creepy relative who invites himself over for dinner and decides to spend the
night. Thank the Lord that childbirth doesn’t last forever. It is over as
quickly as it starts in my experience. The
only bright side to the pain of childbirth is the beautiful blessing that
emerges from the womb: the miracle of life!
We all experience pain in some form or another in life. Whether it’s just a stubbed toe or an
impalement, pain is in the “eye of the beholder” so to speak. We all handle the pain differently. I have seen a man who was shot in the stomach,
talking and acting as though he was perfectly fine. I have also seen a man whose arm was slightly
grazed by a bullet, freaking out as if he was on his death bed. I was pepper sprayed while in training at the
police department and I was crying and gasping for air for at least an
hour. That pain was intense! Afterwards, I felt so ashamed at how
ridiculous I made myself look. I wish I had
handled it more gracefully, with some toughness and dignity. Instead I had drool and snot running down my
face, all over my shirt and a picture published all over social media to prove
it! So embarrassing…
I guess the moral of this story is that we are all in this together. “This” meaning life. And life sucks tremendously at times but most
times it is so wonderful and beautiful.
When we go through pain, we choose how to handle ourselves. Regardless of how painful the experience is,
we can suck it up and take it like a man or we can cry and snot and drool like
a complete idiot. Either way, it’s your prerogative. I can’t dictate to you how to handle your
situation. Even if I have been in your
exact situation. I am not you and I can’t
judge the way you handle it. When I was
in labor with my last child, the doctor was doing a lousy job of coaching me
and talking to me as if I was posing for a photo shoot instead of pushing a
human being out of my lady parts. Thank
God my husband was standing at my left side and a nurse at my right to gently
talk me through the process and help me get through the struggle in a way that
actually encouraged me to handle the situation like a queen. If it weren’t for them, I would probably have
cursed at least 12 times.
In elementary school, I did a presentation on Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. I wanted to use a quote
that was unique (to me anyway) because we have all heard “I have a dream” a
million times and could recite it verbatim in our sleep. I chose the following quote and I still think
of it from time to time (it's weird how this random stuff pops into my head but I'm so thankful my head is filled with more positive than negative):
“At
times, life is hard, as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and painful
moments. Like the ever flowing water of a river, life has its moments of
drought and its moments of flood. Like the ever changing cycle of the seasons,
life has the soothing warmth of the summers and the piercing chill of its
winters. But through it all, God walks with us. Never forget that God is able
to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform
dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.”
Though pain is, well, painful, one thing is for
sure – pain doesn’t last forever. It has
to end sometime. Through the storms in
life and through the sunshine, God is always with us. Satan and his demons will taunt us and try to
bring out the worst in us during times of pain.
If you are still and quiet during the pain, you can hear God’s voice
coaching you through so you can maintain some grace and dignity in spite of the
circumstance. I don’t always conduct
myself like a queen. Sometimes I get
quite pissed off at the pain and lash out but more and more I choose to be
still and quiet and let God soothe me and talk me through it.
As you go through your pain, I want to encourage you and let you know that you are not alone.
I feel pain too. You may see me
at my weak moments and I may see you at yours.
Don’t worry, I won’t judge you and I won’t tell anybody. But I hope when we see each other, we won’t
even be able to see pain. We will just see joy.
