What pain has taught me

Two days ago someone told me that God didn't want me to feel bad, and that taking pain drugs wouldn't make God "like" me less.  I've thought deeply about the comment, and since I've had time today to ride in the backseat of my mom's car for most of the evening, I've given it a great deal of thought.    

I think so often Christians emphasize the message, "God cares personally about your pain" to the point where we believe our pain is the only thing He thinks about.  The idea strikes me as odd; almost like God lies awake at night tossing and turning concerned what our pain might do to our self-esteem.  Yes, I think God cares about our pain to a certain degree.  But let's not forget that God's glory is his main objective, and he will achieve that end whether I live the rest of my life in pain or not. 

There is one thing that has always amazed me about God.  It's that God can be focused entirely on Himself and his glory, yet never be selfish.  He can desire all things for himself, and never be greedy.  He can proclaim his power in all the earth and never be proud.  Saying God is more concerned about his glory than my pain may sound harsh, but it's probably  more true than some would like to think.  

Pain is a great teacher.  It's astonishing that a God of comfort could use pain as a medium of communication with us.  Like C.S. Lewis said, pain is a megaphone, and sometimes people like me are so hard-headed that could be the only way God gets across to us.  Most of my life I've spent praying for whatever physical pain I had would go away.  Now I don't pray that; because sometimes it's pain that keeps me in line.

Without pain, I wouldn't have known much about God.  Someone recently asked me how I can believe in a God who would put me in pain for the rest of my life.  That is an arrogant question.  It shows that we don't desire God as He is; we desire our own comfort more than a genuine faith.  I find it astonishing people honestly think the only possible God that could exist would be a God who is morally obligated to make life perfect.  God created life, he gives us choices to make, but there is nothing that morally obligates him to make it peachy.  

Without pain, it would be hard for me to acknowledge God as my Father.  Good dads don't give and always surrender to make us feel better.  God not only loves us, but he knows what's best for us too. 

Life is like a play on the theater that he calls the world.  Everyone has a role that he designed for us to play.  God expects us to play that role well, even if it wasn't the role we wanted.  And although we may cry and scream and pout, God is not going to appease us and change our role.  We're stuck with what we have, I figure we might as well embrace it.  

Without pain, it would be impossible for me to know who I am.  This pain reminds me of what I'm made of, Who I belong to, and my ultimate purpose to give God his glory.  But I admit, sometimes it's hard not to be mad God made me this way and he cast me this role. Because quite frankly, if he left skeletal dysplasia out of my script, it would be alright by me.  

Most specifically, pain has taught me about beauty.  I'll be really honest for a moment, maybe almost too honest for this late night blog post.  But I think at the heart of every woman, our desire is to be called beautiful.  It's just a fact - women want to be beautiful.  If you call a woman un-intellectual, un-sophisticated, or even un-talented, she will probably recover.  I've never seen a woman who was told she was ugly ever really recover.  

Some of my girlfriends cry in front of the mirror.  Breakouts, baby fat, straight hair, large noses...you name it, we've sat in front of the mirror and cried about it.  There is something every woman has in her life comes to her and says"See this?  You're ugly.  No one could be beautiful with a feature like this."  After you hear that message so much, it gets inscribed deeply in your spirit.  

I don't cry in front of the mirror.  I cry in front of the x-ray machine.  Really, I do.  I hate x-rays because I hate hearing the doctor's tone of voice that says, "this looks bad" when I look at a black and white picture of a deformed skeleton that happens to be me.  I didn't cry because the results are bad; I cry because it's the one thing in my life that makes me feel un-beautiful.   

Pain has taught me beauty is more.  Beauty is most pronounced in the context of grace.  A person who has grace and inner peace is the most beautiful kind of person of all.  And when I use a mirror, or a bathroom scale, or even an x-ray machine to determine my beauty, I have tried to gain beauty at the expense of my soul.  I've let that go.  I know who I am, and sometimes that's just good enough.   

Pain is an incredible medium, and I don't pray for it to go away.  I pray that it would keep teaching me lessons.