Lessons of Pain
I've been moving some sites off my blog lists and adding new ones. One of those blogs I’ve added to my reading list is Phil Cooke’s The Change Revolution. In a recent post, Phil asked the question, “Are You Still Carrying Wasted Pain,” he shared:A former prisoner of war was asked if he harbored resentment for all the years he spent being tortured in a foreign prison. Although the experience had been devastating, he said he had no time for “wasted pain.”
Bingo. Love it but hate it. Wasted pain is exactly what to call it. It certainly isn’t godly regret. Wasted pain doesn’t learn from what happens. Wasted pain anchors us in the past and ultimately wastes our lives.
Having spent some time in my life (and recent months) dealing with pain, I have a good sense of what this means. Knowing many friends and family who have felt pain recently has hit home too. But I think there are two sides to pain and we have the opportunity to experience Useful Pain.
1. Useful pain becomes a teacher and counselor.
2. Useful pain takes moments and tragedies as well as anger and frustrations, and helps us take note of who we were, what we’ve come through and who we are as a result.
3. Useful pain moves us forward.
4. Useful pain creates a "force-sensitivity" to guard your steps.
5. Useful pain reminds us that pain is temporary. Growth is painful.
6. Useful pain brings home the reality that we're still alive and kicking.
Don't waste pain. Use it.
May I Ask? How have you experienced pain recently? May I Suggest? Make a list of 5 things you've learned from pain.
Posts
5 comments:
1. Pain is warning you that something is dangerous. So learn what not to do.
2. Pain may immobilize you. Get up and keep going. It's not going to get any better by lying in the pit.
3. Share your pain with others. They might help.
4. Stop sharing your pain with others. Don't become so absorbed in your pain that you become a burden to others.
5. Beware of the temptation to dope your pain -- drugs, food, sex, shopping, and other various pleasures -- these can temporarily alleviate pain, both physical and emotional, but they can do long-term damage.
Ken,
Path Through Tragic Pain
God's solution for crushing tragedy
is not an offer of a miraculous remedy.
God offers not a formula to eliminate or insulate.
Instead God calls us on the path to participate.
God's grace transforming our places of humiliation,
such is the journey of tragic redemption.
Words wise and true are meant as a tool, but wrongly used are just plain cruel.
'What ifs' only chain us to the past.
Blame games brings healing which does not last
Naive expectations seek for faith to work like magic,
yet, by faith we walk through the tragic,
Various addictions help excuse our real condition.
They block the way for helpful consolation.
Tragic pain easily becomes fused into a sick self-identification.
A calloused soul greatly needing tragic redemption.
Tragic feelings deep and real are not the center of the universe.
'No one knows the trouble I've seen' needs another verse.
Other's tragedies might not be as bad,
While some are far worse than what we had.
Sucking others into our misery,
creates a path to further insanity.
Locked in by self centered rage,
like a wild animal in a cage.
Bitterness creates an illusion of security and control.
Yet, it will not make one whole.
Expecting and demanding perfection creates dark isolation.
The courage to be imperfect brings salvation.
Controlling, rationalizing and intellectualizing spreads darkness in our souls,
while accepting ourselves as flawed returns the dawn of life into our
aching souls.
Isolated souls existing around like souls, hurt, kill and destroy each other.
Connected souls living around similar souls, treat each other like sister and brother.
I wrote this last summer
John M. Crowe, D.Min., APC
Thanks for the post Jedi-Pastor Ken. I love it when someone takes a thought of mine and develops it into something larger. I'd love to hear you thoughts on my upcoming book "The Last TV Evangelist: Why The Next Generation Couldn't Care Less About Religious Media." I need a good Jedi perspective.... :-)
John,
Thanks for adding to the list. Good thoughts. Your number 5 hits on a key temptation.
John C.,
That took a lot of work. Thank you for sharing!
Phil,
First, you're welcome. I love to run across something that makes me think and push my own thoughts. I've enjoyed reading your blog lately. Second, I'd love to read your book! For one thing, I've got to read 48 books this year. For another, I'm not sure I am all that interested in religious media and would love to hear some one else's perspective.
Ken,
Thanks for complimenting my poem. The hard work was not in the pen, but in the livin. It is as much a summary of my life both past and present as it captures the heart of the book Tragic Redemption by Hiram Johnson.
Too many books by Christians about "Pain" are little more than dime story theology.
One of my friends asked me recently, are you still living in the pain articulated by the poem or do you write on the other side of the pain?
I answered saying, It's an ongoing journey my friend. At times, I'm in some of the best places of that poem and other times I'm not, but overall further in a healthier direction than before.
Like the couple in the book Walking Towards Hope, I can't honestly say that oh the pain was very deep and bad, then the grace of God intervened and now I'm happy every day. No for one of the "Lessons of Pain" is learning to walk through it and very often with it without allowing pain of your individual cross in life to draw you fully into the dark side my poem speaks of.
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