Do you ever have the gnawing feeling that you are missing something about life in general, and if you could just find the gem that told you how to navigate this life, everything would be ok? I know I have. I am not here to tell you what that gem is. I believe if there is only one gem, than it is multifaceted, and can only be looked at truly one facet at a time. Once you have seen all the facets (which I believe impossible to do in one lifetime) then maybe, just maybe, you could piece them all together to see the whole of the one gem. What is probably more true to life is that there are a multitude of gems with a multitude of facets, and each gem would take a hundred lifetimes to explore just to see that one gem.
Now before you throw your hands up in frustration at me, and say "That's impossible to navigate!" and walk away, let me say that yes, you are probably right. That is impossible. After all, didn't I just say it would take hundreds of lifetimes just to explore one gem? How can we navigate life at all if there are thousands of other gems that we will never have a chance to glace at in this lifetime? Well, don't lose hope yet. Because I believe we will have those hundreds and thousands of lifetimes to explore all the gems. We will never get bored of each facet, but find that each time we look at it, it is more glorious and sparkling than the time before. I believe there is an eternal after life in which we can go to be with Jesus and spend an eternity just looking at all these gems with Jesus as our guide to see them with true clarity. But the after life is not the main topic of this post. Perhaps I will discuss this in a later post.
Whats my point then? Well, I believe, if I may be so bold to say this, that I have stumbled upon one of the most misunderstood facets and sometimes shunned facets, but if it was truly understood, we would see that it shines just as brilliantly as the rest. Not only is it misunderstood and shunned, people run screaming from it, thinking that it is something that will ruin their lives, when it never was intended to do that. Rather it enhances our lives and makes them shine all the brighter. And it is a facet that won't follow us into eternity. The only time we can truly understand it and squeeze all the beauty out of it that we can, is here. Because my understanding, as little as it is, is that it wont be in the after life. What is this facet? We know its name only too well: Pain.
The crazy thing is that if pain is just one facet of one gem, then even that one facet has many facets to look at. But I will generalize all of them to one facet, just to save time. Pain will be the facet that encompasses everything we find uncomfortable in this world. It includes loss, rejection, denial, unanswered prayers, waiting for something, never attaining a goal, ridicule, love denied, family tensions, death, wounds, hurts, struggles... you get the general idea. It extends from the very mildest form to the sharpest most severe amount it can inflict. It can be physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, etc. Have I lost you yet? Are you thinking to yourself, how can this possibly be part of a beautiful, dazzling, sparkling gem? Well, if you will just stay with me, I will try to explain what I believe I have stumbled upon.
First, let me tell you what I am NOT saying. Pain is not something to be wallowed in, or to have a pity party about. It is not a place to visit and then set up our houses and stay for a long time. We should not fixate on it, for if we do, it won't be pretty at all. It will crush us with its weight, and rather then our lives shining like a diamond, we will be destroyed.
So what am I saying? Pain is a double edged sword, and whichever side you land on depends wholly on your reaction to pain, or your attitude about pain. If you land on one side, it will split you open, and as I mentioned above, you will be destroyed. But, if your heart is open, and you have peace in your soul, then when you find yourself touched with pain, it will still cut you, but it will be a cutting away of the ugly, and only the beautiful will remain. If the latter is the case for you, pain has always been a blessing in disguise. For it is often the vehicle that propels and motivates us to get from point A to point Z in our lives. Without pain of even the mildest format, many of us would simply stay where we are in life, and would not reap the joys of a fulfilled life.
Honestly ask yourself if this has not been the case in your own life. Test your past to see if what I am saying is false. I know for me that pain has pushed me forward in leaps and bounds where otherwise I would have stayed stagnant and complacent. One example that comes to mind is having children. I don't have any children of my own yet, but I know enough to know that having a child is physically very painful for the mother. The birth process is full of sharp pain, but the joy of the child that is received on the other end of that pain is beyond what most mothers can describe. I could share from my own life the story of pain, and what it has done for me. But maybe I will share some of that later. I just wanted to share my thoughts on pain, and maybe give some of you hope, and perhaps change your perspective on things a bit. Just some thoughts from the mind of Crystal =)
