My 14 year old daughter tells me her legs hurt because she is growing. I think we call those, "growing pains." So my thought is maybe growing pains happen in every area of growth or change. You have heard the phrase, "he learned a hard lesson', same idea. He had to learn something through some level of pain.
C. S. Lewis wrote a great book entitled The Problem With Pain. He wrote this book after losing his wife to cancer. His insights for this book were birthed out of loss and grief. Back to this idea that pain or discomfort seem to always be part of change and growth.
But here is the problem. Myself and most people are not real fond of low levels of discomfort and certainly not full blown pain. So I become pretty good at avoiding pain. Actually our current culture is very skilled at pain avoidance. We do all kinds of goofy things in an attempt to avoid any kind of discomfort. We work, we drink, we shop, we stay very busy, we pursue stuff, look at pornography, gamble, pursue shallow relationships, we do religion, ignore our hearts anything to avoid the pain we sense in our lives.
So many of us don't grow into the people we were called and created to be. So I'm thinking "can I grow with the absence of pain in my life?"
I really want to grow. Ouch!
Peace,
3 comments:
OK, I found the quote I told you about, but it was about the three ways to get wisdom (instead of grow personally). But it was right next to a Tolstoy quote about suffering:
"When you suffer, think not on how you can escape suffering, but concentrate your efforts on what kind of inner moral and spiritual perfection this suffering requires."
From his writings, it seems he thinks the same way about how suffering is needed in order to grow. I have never thought about this before, but you can be sure I'll think about it now!
Here's a question: for those of us who are more melancholy in nature, does that mean we need more growing than others or that we tend to embrace the sorrow instead of denying it/'stuffing' it down? Do we search it out or are we naturally in tune with it? Are we called to it?
Hey Jen,
I think some of it is balance. Our melancholy nature helps us see and relate to the sorrow, pain etc in the world. That role is needed and very valuable. The role of happy face and everything is good is important as well. Both bring something valuable to life.
Sometimes denial is necessary for survival. But the reality is there is much pain and suffering and it can be very transforming if we choose to acknowledge it and grow from it.
This is one of my favorite posts so far.
Denial, avoidance... so true.
Have you read Philip Yancey's Where Is God When It Hurts? (Pretend that was in italics because I hate bad grammar) Bawled my eyes out. But in a good way.
OK God, I am tall enough.
(Just kidding)
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