The other side of pain

I don't really know how to start this post, except to say that what ever it is we have to learn, I think it's already inside us. I think God puts the answers to our problems in our hearts and it is our job to open the doors, windows and drawers to discover what is waiting there.

Everybody feels pain, I'm not special in that sense, except that I am the only one who can feel mine. Physical, emotional, spiritual pain, it all brings us to our knees and threatens to break our bond with God by the sheer isolation of feeling pain alone. But I'm not writing this to write about pain. I'm writing this because the view from the other side is so beautiful. I have found that after the initial shock of pain, if I can push back, even softly and gently, pain starts to move a little. I can't think of any beautiful metaphors for it, so I won't try. But if I can lean into the pain, instead of hiding from it and let it wash over me, eventually I come out on the other side of it. I find I can see more clearly and that I'm stronger for not having hidden. Like it or not, pain comes for us all at different times in our lives. But it's destructive power comes from the same place as it's healing, beautifying power; from within the heart. This post is a reminder to my past, present and future self that pain is less of a brick wall than an ocean wave. Well, I came up with a metaphor after all.