All too often we use this mantra, but do we really believe it? Do we really believe that pain can be a good thing to experience? This is an interesting question to a culture that seems to do everything we can to avoid pain. Like my high school trainer used to say for what seemed like every injury, "tape it up, take Aleve and ice it after the game" (which now explains my stomach issues for the 6-8 Aleve per baseball game). In a culture of pain relievers, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety pills and other drugs to suppress the pain of life, we've been trained to avoid it at all costs. So what's the problem with that? I'm learning that truly the best way grow is to walk through the pains of life, not avoid them or try to get free from them. Pain is a part of life, it teaches us lessons we may have otherwise never learned. On the other hand, avoiding pain can actually do more harm than we realize.
13 years ago my grandfather and best friend past away. I was 17, confused, and experiencing the most pain I'd ever felt. Instead of accepting and walking through the pain, I chose to avoid it with drugs. Which then sent me on a downward spiral for the next 4 years of addiction and depression. Walking through pain has a mysterious way of bringing us to a point of maturation, or initiation if you will. It's the catalyst to brings us to a point of understanding that there's something bigger and more important than our own ego and comfort. It forces us to grow outside of ourselves. Women have a natural catalyst for this, child bearing, but for men, it's different. It takes an inciting incident, which is usually painful, to initiate us into manhood.
It wasn't until about 4-5 years after my grandfather's death that I finally stopped avoiding pain, when the next most painful moment in my life happened. I won't get into the details of it, but I couldn't avoid it this time. I had to walk through the pain, I had to endure the hurt, the depression, the days where I didn't want to get out bed. And on the other side of it was a beautiful resurrection! A peace that I couldn't have had without knowing the pain before it! And an ability to love I didn't possess that pain made me realize how unimportant I am.
So to conclude, I don't have an answer to get through the pains of life. But I can tell you, from a small amount of wisdom and experience, embrace and walk through pain. The avoidance of it will only stunt growth and the ability to have peace in all things. As Paul said, I am content all things, I am all things to all people, not because of some supernatural gift, it was the natural gift of pain he endured. So embrace the pain you're in and the pain to come. There's grace to endure it, but most importantly, there's a beautiful resurrection on the back end of it! As my Colorado friends would say, "Embrace the suckage."
