Everybody hurts...Sometime.

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.