There is this thing about suffering that I’ve been mulling over in my head for some time now that I haven’t been able to put into form just yet.  I thought I’d spend some time blogging about it to see if it lands in a form that makes some sense to me. That thing is this: no matter what kind of suffering a person goes through, the person is always altered by it’s presence. It seems that any experience of pain coming into one’s life and hanging around awhile will change the life no matter what.

Suffering is pain. Pain that is often found in the form of…

• a physical sensation
• a mental stretching
• an emotional response
• spiritual confusion
• environmental stresses
• relationship tension

The pain comes in and the sufferer gets to respond. As the pain comes and the sufferer looks at it and avoids it, it usually gets more intense. That never works because pain is a force that demands to be acknowledged; to be seen, to be felt, to be heard, to be experienced. It doesn’t not want to be left out.

Pain seems to want to be about change. Change is it’s thing. Pain wanted me to notice the sliver in my finger that I didn’t feel go in when I carried some wood in the house. It wanted me to get it out because it was not a part of me.

Pain wanted me to notice that I was under-qualified for a teaching position even though the certificate said it wasn’t so.

Pain wanted me to learn to let go of control when my child had to face the dark by herself and let it change her.

Pain wanted me rest and refresh instead of push and push and push.

Pain pushes me to compare myself to others and determine that they are better than me and when that is more painful, then it pushes me to let go of comparison and just be me.

Pain makes me realize I need to draw boundaries in relationships.

It seems as if pain is very useful and that without it I wouldn’t be able to grow. I wouldn’t be able to mature. I wouldn’t be able to become.

Just some randomness on a Sunday night when my painful eyes are telling me it’s time for bed.