Purpose to our pain

Recently I watched a movie called Vanilla sky, I thought it was a really strange film but there was a quote from the movie that really stuck with me, “Just remember, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour, and I know the sour.”

There is a quote that really captures the way the world views pain, “when pain is gone, life takes its place.” What if again, we need to question what we know and what the world says. Many of us have grown up believing that in order to be happy we need to be free of any pain. We need to avoid pain and minimize risk, failure and loss, however through these actions we also limit ourselves and the lives we live. I have borrowed a few ideas and concepts from a Ted Talk by Brock Bastian on why we need pain to feel happiness, and I highly recommend the watch.

From a neurological point of view the neurotransmitters secreted in the brain for pain are the same neurotransmitters secreted for pleasure, and according to recent psychological studies the experience of pain can enhance our ability to experience pleasure. I am by no means saying that you need to go out and seek pain, I am merely saying that the experience of pain is necessary, and through it we can feel and experience happiness and joy in a far more real way. Pain can also create purpose and meaning. Imagine running a pain free marathon, would there be any sense of achievement or satisfaction in that?

Again, I am going to quote from a song by Switchfoot titled Where the light shines through. “The wound is where the light shines through”, yes, we all have our own wounds and of course they are not all the same, but I still believe this applies to us all. I believe that often our pain presents us with a unique opportunity that lack of suffering could not offer us. It gives us empathy for others, it allows us to be a source of comfort to those in a similar situation, it allows us the opportunity for grace. It gives wisdom and resolve. It gives us a testimony and allows people to see the face of God in the love and comfort we either give or receive during our times of pain.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the holocaust wrote, “what is to give light must endure burning.” I realize that this does not take away from the hurt and pain, and that sometimes that burning is excruciating, but I hope it can be a source of comfort to know that that burning will produce light. There is no light without darkness. There is no joy without suffering.

A world without risk, hardships, pain and heartache may seem the ideal and would bring endless joy, however I don’t believe this would be the truth. Yes, that place does exist in heaven, but here on earth without risk there can be no satisfaction in the reward, no joy without misery and no sweet without the bitter.

We need opposition to things in order to compare and contrast. Without negative aspects in life we would have nothing to compare positive aspects against, and if this were the case, we would have neither positive nor negative aspects, they would cease to exist. We need to be able to feel pain in order to feel joy and happiness.

Pain can create mindfulness and awareness. Imagine yourself in any situation in which you feel pain, your initial instinct is not to complete whatever task it is that you were busy with, but to deal with the pain. Pain brings us to the present and forces us to focus on our senses. In this way pain allows us to live in the moment and feel, when we can so often be swept up in everything going on around us and neglect our senses.

Pain can also bring people closer together and is something that unifies us.

Don’t hide from your pain, don’t run from it. Don’t feel like you are not allowed to feel happiness because you are hurt or suffering. Don’t let pain make you feel alone, weak or unworthy. Don’t hide your wounds, use them as a testimony. “Turn your wounds into wisdom”. It is my sincere hope that it is from the ashes that we can create beauty. “I wanna see that light shinning brighter than the pain.”

Just as there was purpose to the act of Jesus suffering on the cross, so too is there purpose to our pain.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 – “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”