Stop Avoiding Pain

It will hurt you more in the long run.

Avoidance based on fear will not protect you from experiencing pain but it will prevent you from growing and learning and deepening connections with yourself, others and even God.

We’ve been conditioned as a society to avoid pain. Physical and emotional pain are seen as bad and are to be avoided at all costs. We have all sorts of medications, devices, and distractions from our pain.

Getting hurt by people is hard. Getting hurt by what God allows can feel unbearable. While I might phrase my disillusionment as a question of why or how, when I lay my head on my tear-soaked pillow, questions can turn into bitter feelings (and have).

Since trust in relationships is built in part with good communication, then more effectively praying has to play a role in my trust with God – that has been a new one for me. Up until now, with prayer, I’ve expected too little of God and too much of myself. I’ve expected an infinite God to reduce His vast ways of doing things down to only what I can think up and pray for.

Yes, people may create chaos that’s not from God. And yes, the brokenness of this world may bring brokenness to my reality. But in the midst of this, there is good provision from God! That’s what I must look for and make the choice to see.

Pain is unavoidable, and your attempt at squashing it just creates a pressure cooker inside yourself. Instead of waiting for the inevitable explosion, release a little bit at a time by connecting with your pain and allowing those feelings to surface. You may feel like you’re going to die, but I promise you won’t. Over time you’ll be able to take bigger emotional risks, opening you up to a kind of happiness and fulfillment you never thought existed.

B