Painful On Purpose

Romans 8:22 -- "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."

 

Matthew 4:24 --  "News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and paralyzed, and he healed them."


Slamming_Into_Parked_Car_theridgewoodblog.net
photo credit:  Boyd A. Loving, New Jersey
With a deep sad sigh I watched the big guy in the blue cover-alls lift the crumpled front-end of my Buick and lock it down to the back of his tow truck. Call me crazy, but I loved that old land yacht. It didn't take a car mechanic to tell me that my days of driving it were over, though. The man who'd caused the accident hit me so hard that it knocked me into the on-coming lane of traffic and completely broke my front axle. The front passenger seat had all but disappeared and the automatic gear console had actually briefly pinned my leg to the steering wheel.

Good-bye solid and reliable car that's been paid off - hello monthly car payment. [pooh, I say!]

After a shaky thirty minute discussion with the police officers and a firm forgiving hand-shake with the man who'd hit me - I actually walked back to my house. [It's true that most accidents happen within a short distance from the home - mine was less than a two full blocks away. I guess that was good - all things considered.]

I could also count it among my many blessings that the boys were with their grandmother for the day. The accident could have been a whole lot worse than it was. And even though there were worried looks from the police officer who wrote out the ticket for the other driver, I ensured all parties that I hadn't been injured. Just really shaken. I had hoped to prove my point by marching myself strait home - where I promptly placed a call to my insurance company.

But as the after-hours ticked by - I began to feel like - well, like I had been hit by a car.

While clearing away the insurance red-tape with a nice lady from State Farm, my head started to pound something awful, my back started to throb and my right wrist began to swell. Never more thankful that my husband's parents lived right around the corner, I called Dad who drove me up to the urgent care center.

It's a good thing I had really begun to feel the pain of the accident. I had a compression fracture on the base of my spine and three herniated discs on my lower vertebrae. But it wasn't my back that had the urgent care nurses running around in full blown alarm. It was the head-ache and the fact that my blood pressure was so high they wanted to admit me into the hospital. [I argued and argued and eventually talked them out of actual admission thanks to Dad Dalton's promise to keep an eye on me.]

The thing is, we are actually suppose to feel pain. I know it seems to be a thing that we all want to avoid as often as possible, but pain is felt for a reason. Usually a good one. Had I not felt the horrible head-ache or the throbbing in my back - I would have gone on like nothing was wrong and could have had a stroke. If I'd ignored all the signs that something was wrong - this story could have had a very different ending.

We don't take a lot of pleasure from being in pain - but without it we might no know to seek out Jesus for healing or to ask our Savior to fix what's wrong. We wouldn't be able to be healed the way we really should.

We experience pain on purpose. And while we won't celebrate that we are faced with it - there are certainly times when we should be very grateful for it. There might even be times when the experience of something painful can change the outcome of our lives.

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