Hard Lessons IV

I once heard a pastor on the radio say that when you experience pain, you have a choice. You can either "get better or you can get bitter". Since hearing that message about seven years ago, I've made it my goal not to run from pain, but to let pain do its perfect work in my life.

Throughout my journey of grief over the loss of our child, I have prayed that God would use the pain to teach me. In order for this to happen, I've had to make a conscious decision to experience the pain. Not to stuff it, not to drug it, not to numb it, not to ignore it. Now, I will say there where times I buried my grief in a bowl of chocolate ice cream, but the pain relief was very temporary. Worldly ways of dealing with pain and grief ALWAYS fail. God's ways of dealing with grief are the only ones that work. I constantly poured out my confusion and sadness to the Lord in my prayers. I took my cue from the psalms. I figured if David could let his raw emotions gush forth in his prayers, I could, too.

That's not to say that I'm all better now. I recently learned that female Alzheimer's and dementia patients often talk about miscarriages or the loss of children they experienced earlier in their lives. When all social niceties are lost to dementia, the pain that's long been buried comes to the surface. The loss of a child through miscarriage or death is a pain that will never go away, at least not on this earth.

Thanks be to God that when we are in heaven "he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!" Then he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.' " Revelation 21:4-5

Pain is common to the human race. It cannot be avoided. A church near our house has a reader board with this on it: "God never wastes a wound." I have found this saying to be true, especially when I am open to what the Lord is willing to teach me through the painful times in my life.