voluntary leprosy, death of the natural nervous system response to pain through any route of escapism.  This life hurts and it was designed to be so.  The pain causes discomfort, movement, growth and an internal desire to cry out to God for relief, shelter, succor and assistance.  Desiring detachment from the hurt associated with pain is the quickest route to a meeting with the enemy, promising, deceptively momentary relief from what God has intended for our growth.  Do we as Americans have a monopoly on pain, do we suffer more than those in other countries?  Of course not, yet we have cornered the market on the accommodation of depression and its subsequent medication.  The enemy has won a major victory in our nation through convincing that treatment of symptoms is adequate replacement for cure.  If pain causes me to seek cure, especially if the illness is terminal, as with my captivity by sin then that pain is justified, heaven sent and good and any efforts to avoid its provocative aspects is a sin more grievous than the original.

I cannot ignore my own illness, hoping to somehow find accommodation or escape from the pain of facing my own inevitable truth.  Facing my own reality may be the single greatest impetus for my salvation.  Therefore, beyond the disastrous contagion of pride, prohibiting or forgoing that cataclysmic moment of my collision with that absolute truth of my need for salvation is the greatest single successful enemy effort against humanity.

Can I expect to enter battle with courage and continuity expecting to escape any wound?  This world drove me to an inevitable meeting with God and I am therefore grateful for those wounds.  It was not my health that brought me to God but my illness, my desire for answer, my sin.  For that is how God uses even evil for His Good purpose, as a catalyst for a reunification with His Holiness in that moment we seek salvation and receive His forgiveness and peace.  Again my pain is not sent from heaven but produces the exact effect God desires for my eternal existence.  Used for Good, as all things it serves God.  And who among us can deny God’s Word, promising chastisement for those whom God loves?  My pain signifies God’s love for me as He continues to prompt me toward righteousness and an eternal relationship with Him.

I do not understand your pain, for it is uniquely yours.  I merely understand that it within that pain is a blessing if you are conscious enough, mature enough, hopeful enough to seek its intention.  Do you trust God?  Do you?  Well here is the opportunity to transform that mustard seed of faith in a bushel.  Let go of trying to escape the pain and embrace it.  Not masochistically admonishing yourself for failure or inadequacy but knowingly realizing that the pain’s intention of driving you closer to a Holy God who loves you.  He is there waiting for that precious moment where you trust Him with your pain and its eradication or nullification.  Perhaps you will be blessed as greatly as Paul and even have God tell you that your pain is the thorn in your side toward realization of His plan for your life.  I do not like pain, but I love what it produces in each of us when placed in subjection to a Sovereign and Loving God.  Trust Him, and forgo any attempts to dull the precious catalysts He is using to get your attention.  Look to Him for relief and you will find peace.  In Jesus Holy Name I pray for you this day.  Amen