Feel your pain

PAIN: localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder (as a disease or an injury); also : a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort and typically leading to evasive action


Pain: physical, mental, emotional.  Pain can have a good result as in the birth of a baby.  That pain is sometimes quickly forgotten when we see that little one we have been waiting for.  Pain can keep us from further hurting ourselves as in feeling a hot stove and knowing we need to keep our hand away....or get burned.

"I feel your pain" Bill Clinton

Pain is unique to the person.  What brings pain to one of us might not cause someone else to even think twice about it.  While we can empathize with someone else going through a painful situation, it is impossible for us to know exactly what that person feels.  Some people refer to themselves as having a high pain tolerance.

However, it seems we have become a people eager to dull or remove our pain....or find evasive action as listed in the dictionary.  There is a pill for everything that ails you.  We can get so busy running around and keeping busy that the only way we slow down is when something starts to hurt.  Pain can serve a greater purpose by letting us know there's something wrong.  We need to feel our own individual pains before we can reach out to others and help them through their pain.

We are promised a coming day though when there will be no more pain.  Until then, may our pain never be wasted.  May we learn and grow through it and bring it to the ultimate healer.

^{Revelation 21:4 (NIV)} He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."