02 Dec Feel The Pain by Erin Cameneti
This past summer I took my kids, Joey and Riley, to the beach. It was so much fun! We live in Ohio, so the sun and warm weather aren’t exactly a big part of our lives. They were in heaven! In fact, they were enjoying themselves so much that nothing, and I mean nothing, could distract them from their fun!
Riley was running along the beach playing and stepped on something that I could tell really hurt her. I called my strong-willed daughter to take a quick break from the action and let me have a look. Of course, she said that she was fine and wanted to keep playing. I eventually insisted, and she finally came. (I may or may not have threatened to leave also LOL #MomTactics)
When we inspected her foot, we saw she was bleeding. That’s when her tune changed. She began to cry at the sight of the blood, groaning and whimpering about how bad it hurt. Now, this was honestly just a minor scratch that needed to be cleaned and bandaged. She survived.
But, as I sat there soaking in the sun, I couldn’t help but observe something that I believe a lot of us do.
Sometimes we don’t feel the pain until we see the wound. I’m convinced we can go years, or decades, in some cases lifetimes without truly feeling the pain. And you may be thinking, “Hey, If I can avoid pain, then great!” But here’s the problem. If we can’t feel the pain, we can’t see the wound and if we can’t see the wound, we’ll never be able to heal it.
In a tweet-able phrase: “If we can’t feel the pain, we can’t heal the pain.”
I love the prayer in Psalm 30:2. “O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. “ Notice the components at work. First, the psalmist identifies the problem, then he cries for help and God does what He does best, He heals the pain!
Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid pain. If we could learn to embrace it, I believe we could heal much faster. If my daughter hadn’t let me look at her foot, and she kept playing in the dirty sand, the wound would have eventually gotten even worse, leading to infection. The journey would have been much harder and longer. Even if it means taking a “time out,” to embrace the pain, I say do it! Feel the pain. Heal the pain.