Someone once said, “Pain and suffering are inevitable; misery is optional.”  ‘Tis true methinks (unless you are suffering from kidney stones when misery is a sure thing.)

Still, misery can be a choice.  Which means not being miserable is also a choice.

Sometimes a bit of suffering enters our lives and disrupts things a little. Other times (WHAM!) suffering grinds us into bits. Whether it’s physical pain, heart pain, life pain – pain, is, well, PAIN. It hurts, a lot. It comes in all shapes and sizes.

Physical pain manifests in many ways and places: sharp, tingling, zinging, aching, mind-numbing, and nauseating pain in our tummies, backs, necks, knees, shoulders, elbows, ankles… (ouch!)

Heart pain runs rampant when our hopes for love are trampled, relationships run askew, partners let us down (or leave us), friends desert us, maybe our parents disappoint us, perhaps our children reject us or become a source of angst?

Life pain erupts when our dreams go off the rails, failure hounds us, we move three steps forward only to fall eight steps back, and nothing turns out like we hoped (or planned?)

Pain of loss catches us by the throat when the holes in our hearts and lives are so deep we feel like they will never be filled.

There’s the pain of unknowing, when fear looms larger than the best coping mechanisms we can muster and it hurts deep in the recesses of our bewildered minds.

Certainly, there are more kinds of pain, but that’s an initial go at it.

Pain can be humbling. Asking others to help us with simple tasks? Another challenge is how to maintain “nice” in the throes of it. Pain tends to make certain redheads grumpy. Although we may give others in our living spheres advice like SHIELDS UP (in Star Trek parlance) we may need to adapt our shields to prevent leaky pain valves decimating others with steaming frustration.

We pray. And pray. And pray (some more.)

It doesn’t mean our pain goes away. Sometimes, as God wills, we are healed. Other times not. That’s the thing about prayer and pain. After we pray we may still hurt, but God is good about filling us with peace to face whatever comes. Amidst the hurt and pain swirling around us and within us, God is with us.

In the pain.

As we walk (or crawl) through our pain, one tiny step at a time, God’s Hands are there to hold the hands of our hearts with Divine Love, the kind that never ends.

In this life, pain and suffering are inevitable, but misery is a choice (especially not being miserable.) It’s not easy with body aches, heart aches, and life aches. But it is possible, if we let the love of God touch us in our swampy achey-places.

 grace, peace & optional misery

   Virginia : )

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” C.S. Lewis