Bring The Pain Pt. 1

Feel The Pain

We have all had pain in our lives. It may have been physical pain, emotional, or even mental pain, but we have all had some type of pain since we were born and began our lives. Some pain we feel is greater than others. Some bearable and some seemingly unbearable. I know, and can speak from experience, that there is pain we think will never end. These types of pains are usually emotional pains.

I believe the greatest pain a person can feel is the pain of separation. This type of pain touches us mentally, emotionally, physically, and even sometimes spiritually. If someone loses somebody to death, their first thought is what are they going to do. This same thought crosses the minds of those who go through the pain of divorce.

What makes the pain of separation greater than any other pain? I believe it is because God's purpose for man was not for him to be alone.

" And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him." Genesis 2:18 (KJV)


Because God had created man in His image and likeness, which means He made man to be like Him in every aspect, He also put in him the desire and need for companionship. Time and again scientific experiments show that people who are deprived from any social contact begin to show signs of mental breakdown. I watched part of a Twilight Zone episode that depicted a futuristic society where the punishment for certain crimes was a sentence of invisibility. A person would not be locked up but rather marked on the forehead. Those who saw the mark of invisibility on their forehead knew they were to act as though that person wasn't there. Totally ignore the person, thus making them invisible. A man who had been sentenced to invisibility acted as though it was fun and great at first, but the more people ignored him and refused to talk to him the more desperate for communication he became. He would beg people to speak to him. Did you ever wonder why solitary confinement was supposed to be so terrible of a sentence for someone? That need for social interaction goes to the heart of who we are and even to our spirit.

I have often heard that the most horrifying thing about hell is not the physical pain that never ends. Not the torture on the damned spirit or burning forever in the lake of fire. Possibly the most horrifying element of hell is total eternal separation from God. Complete and total separation from the one who created us and breathed life into us. I know that when I have missed the mark or for a better terminology, sinned, the distance I feel from God is to the point of depressing. Sin separates us from God. The bible asks the question, how can light and darkness co-exist. God is light and sin is darkness.

For all the pain we experience and feel in our lives, that pain of being separated from God is the one we should strive to avoid. I believe God hurts every time we hurt no matter what that hurt may be, it's just the fact that we His children are hurting. I cringe at the mere thought of one of my children being hurt.
Jesus bore the pain and paid the price of our sin. He felt the excruciating pain of separation as he prayed in the garden of Eden. The mental anguish of being separated from God the Father shook him to his core.

"And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." St. Luke 22:44 (KJV)

It has been said that a person can reach such despair that there blood vessels can burst and they will literally sweat blood, but a person has to be in that extreme state for it to happen. Jesus was obviously in that state of despair. The bible says that God turned His back on Jesus. It has been said that God turned His back because He could not bear to see His son Jesus that way. In a sense that may be true, but Jesus was taking our sins upon himself and God was separating from that sin. Through all of that Jesus still prayed not his will, but God's will be done. When we are feeling pain all we can pray is please take it away.

We live in a fallen world. We are imperfect people living with imperfect people. Hurts and pains will always be in our lives until Jesus returns. The solution to feeling the pain isn't trying to not feel it, but embrace it for what it is and know that it is not a lasting thing. When I went through some of the most devastating and painful times of my life I wanted nothing more than for it to end. I searched and did anything I could to learn how to stop the pain. What I learned was that I wasn't alone in my pain. Jesus was there with me, in the form of friends and things like music and God's word that helped the healing. I also learned that time heals all wounds, if you let it. Feeling pain is just the momentary circumstance. Healing pain is an on going process. The process of Jesus. Bring the pain.

In Christ, Kevin