Nate and Noah don't ever want to wear shoes, and they inevitably get little scrapes while running/tripping/crashing on our driveway. Every day it's something.
Today, however, Noah took a nice little chunk out of his big toe. He was quite unhappy about it too. The worst part was there was a tiny rock wedged in there and I had to get it out. Unhappy would not be the word to describe that. More like, "My Dad is the spawn of Satan." Beth had to hold him down, and I got out the tweezers, did a little surgery and pulled that little sucker out. He screamed his head off. (It still doesn't beat Nate's trip to the ER for stitches, but it's close.)
Then, while I was holding him, letting him know I wasn't completely evil, something came out of my mouth completely by accident. While I was holding him, I said to him, "Sometimes things have to hurt more before they can get better." I've been ruminating in this thought all night. When we realize we hurt, does it usually get better or worse? What have you found to be true in your life? Leave a comment and let me know.
3 comments:
Well first of all, let me point out all that ADORABLE BABY CHUB!! Those boys couldn't be cuter!
...And I think a lot of pain -physical or emotional- is affected by our minds. The more we deny and fight what is happening, the more painful it can be. We can literally fight against the healing process by trying to not let pain be painful. If we embrace and look beyond the moment to the inevitable light at the end of the tunnel, it's somehow easier to handle. So if we're in pain and fighting it, accepting it will bring comfort. If we're hurting and don't even know it (ie: in a case of abuse/codependency), coming to that realization will probably bring on a greater pain before healing can take place. That's my take, anyway. :) Kisses to Noah's big toe for me! (yeah, I'm a mom!)
"If we embrace and look beyond the moment to the inevitable light at the end of the tunnel, it's somehow easier to handle."
are you saying that hope is the force behind people who experience comfort in the midst of pain?
i keep thinking in terms of emotional pain i guess than in terms of physical pain. i have not experienced physical pain to the point that a lot of people have. i've been in pain, but not had to deal with chronic things (in which there is little hope). in other areas though, i've found that usually when an issue is painful, it's going to get worse before it gets better. for example, in a marriage, if things aren't going well and there are some things that make you upset or cause pain, surfacing those things to your spouse can be much more painful and difficult, but that's the only way they'll get better. that's just one example. i'm curious if it carries into other areas as well.
i ask because i think as a culture we are greatly opposed to pain and painful things. although i can understand in a way, there is still a part of me that asks why we flee pain so readily.
"For many sacrificial years physician Dr. Paul Brand had been working with Leprosy patients in India , seeking to at least discover ways of reducing the effects of the disease if not finding a cure for them. What he discovered was almost as revolutionary as a cure: One of the oldest known and perhaps most notorious diseases in history has been misunderstood for thousands of years.
Until Dr. Brand’s work (the most ground breaking fruits of which occurred in the fifties) physicians had thought that the deformed limbs, blindness, gangrene, etc. of Lepers were all directly caused by the disease. Dr. Brand discovered, however, that the disease attacks only the millions of pain receptors in our body, while leaving the rest of our tissue undamaged. Because they do not feel any pain, the leper will regularly place their hands on hot stoves, or allow a paper cut to become infected until gangrene sets in and the foot or hand must be amputated."
"Leprosy strips the victim of the gift of pain that acts as an alarm system blaring incessantly until it is heard. When a healthy person catches the flu or gets a cut, their pain receptors force them to drop everything else that they are doing and deal with the situation until the pain goes away and the body returns to health. Conversely, Lepers have no insistent alarm system, and will therefore allow minor infections to develop into horrifically debilitating catastrophes even though they may be aware of the problem. Yet because it does not hurt they allow the infection to continue. They may see the problem but they do not feel it."
He goes on to discuss how when Jesus would heal lepers, they would be healed by being able to feel pain again. I think in our culture pain is demonized and we do all we can to avoid it, but this just causes us to suffer greater injury. Pain can be a gift because it can indicate something subsurface or visible that we are ignoring that needs attention. This also has great implications when we who are in the body of Christ and are privileged see but ignore (because we don't want to feel) the pain of the body in other parts of the world or even our own neghborhoods.
Check out Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants by Philip Yancey and Dr Paul Brand.
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