Finding the Gifts In Pain

For the past few days, I've been laid up with a lower back ache of the yucky variety. It feels like my lower spine is being gripped by a vice, and every once in a while a fiery electricity shoots through my muscles. I'm a firm believer that people need more than one best friend, and this week has convinced me I'm right. Since Saturday, my three best friends have been Bayer Back and Body, a microwavable sac of corn, and lots of rest.

Pain is a part of life. It's impossible to escape. I admit that I hate it. But I also acknowledge that I have an easier grasp on pain if there's a purpose behind it. For instance, if I'm in the gym, taxing and maxing out my muscles in a marathon squat, pain is my body's way of saying, "You're changing the shape of your muscle! Embrace the burn!" Actually, that sounds more like what my instructors say. And when on four occasions in my life, I found myself in a hospital, belly burgeoning with life wanting to escape, pain told me, "Hang on- just getting you one step closer to becoming a Mom!" I get that. I understand that there is a purpose to those types of pain. This back pain though, I don't get it. There's a lot about pain that I can't swallow. I would be able to with the promise of a purpose, but without that, pain seems pointless. What does a bad back, or pain in life, have to do with anything good? If I look hard enough into the cloud of that question, I am able to find a silver lining. 

My back pain has demanded that I make some major adjustments to the way I go about life. I have to be intentional about every movement, and every position. In other words, pain has caused me to slow down. I'm used to a certain pace of life with taxiing my kids to and from school, going to the gym, running errands, keeping the house...well...kept up- it's all a part of what my life looks like. This pain though, has put the brakes on a lot of that activity. I have had to slow down my pace, decrease the miles per hour on the sometimes frantic treadmill of life, and slow down my expectations. Pain causes us to pause more, to reevaluate what is truly necessary, and to funnel our energies into  more narrow, purposeful living. Suddenly the things that I thought I had to do became things that I had to put off for another less pain filled day. And I had to learn to be OK with that. 

Pain has also made me more sensitive to the pain others have endured. As I laid down on my bed with a hot pack on my back, my mind went to my friend Jillian's sweet Mom, Diane. Diane went home to be with Jesus back in November, and watching Jillian move through the stages of grief at a distance has been both heart-breaking and inspiring. I remember before Diane was diagnosed with cancer, that she experienced unbearable back pain. I know for a fact that what I feel doesn't even come close to the pain she felt. I can't imagine. And yet through that excruciating pain, I saw in her the love of Jesus, in the most fiery trial of her life. This pain reminds me that there are others in my life who are in a world of pain. A pain free back would desensitize me to the pain all around me, but every time I ache, I remember to pray for those who are in agony of body, spirit, soul, or emotions. Which brings me to unwrap the next gift of pain: perspective.

In my haste in life, sometimes I go after the seemingly urgent, and skip over the eternal. Pain is reminding me what is really important in my life. Usually when I pick up my 6 year old, Janessa, from kindergarten, once she's buckled in, we take off for home. But every once in a while when she has something important to tell or show me, she asks me to pull over and stop before we head home so she can chat with me. On one of the worst days of my pain, she climbed in the van and said, "Mom! I have something to show you! Can you pull over?" After I stopped the car, she pulled out a picture she had colored in class. It was a black sheep. "Aww!" I exclaimed. "Janessa, it's beautiful!" "But Mom, that's not all! Flip it over." I flipped it over and saw that she had hand drawn a picture of a shepherd with a crook. "See that shepherd?" she gushed, "I drew him so he could take care of the sheep." Instantly, as my back ached from sitting in the van so long, I remembered that my Good Shepherd was taking care of me, His sheep. And I was reminded that in my moment of weakness, that He was even more so tenderly, and gently caring for me, as I attempted to care for my husband and kids. Pain brings perspective because it reminds me that I'm not operating in my own strength. A healthy back would make it easy to forget, but a back wracked with pain is a tangible reminder that I need His help with every step, every stretch, and every bend. My weakness is the perfect platform for His strength to take center stage. My frailty stands in perfect contrast to His mighty power. My pain wrings me out of myself, and lets me soak up more of my Creator's strength. 

Slowing down. Sensitivity. Perspective. These are just some of the gifts of pain. I wouldn't wish pain on anyone. I wish there was a way we could escape it. But since we know there isn't a way, we have to ask ourselves, are there gifts in pain that I haven't explored? Am I emerging from this tight place a changed individual? Are there more people that I'll be able to understand because I've been through this? If so, you have discovered the gifts of pain. And as the old adage says, "no pain, no gain."