Pain

So I was talking with a friend tonight and she had just broken up with her boyfriend. I was trying to think of some words of wisdom to say to her. I thought of all of the things people have said to me over the past almost 7 years. There has been a lot of advice and “words of wisdom” but none of it could ever take away the pain.
And that’s when I realized it is because we have to go through the pain to know the joy. I guess it was what Warren Barfield was trying to say yesterday, if you were at Breiel, about his collar bone. But it didn’t make sense to me today but as I had finished this conversation with this friend and I was reflecting on it I realized all of the joy I have felt that I could not have know if I had not first known the pain.

This past week I have felt a joy I have never known as I came to forgive myself and people who have hurt me. But if it wasn’t for that hurt then I could have never known that joy that forgiveness brings.

So tonight if you are walking a path that has brought you pain. I pray that you will continue on it. You may not understand why but God does. He knows the joy you will experience from the pain you have suffered. He must, that is why He sent His Son in the first place. He suffered pain so that we may experience the joy of having a relationship with Him. There is a celebration that is in heaven as another person comes to know Him but there had to be the cross first.
We must go through the valleys to fully experience God on the mountain tops.

Orginally written: June 23, 2009