What is pain?  

According to Webster’s Dictionary: Pain is A physical suffering associated with disease, injury or a bodily disorder.  It can also mean mental distress. Some other words associated with pain are: suffering, agony, torture, torment, discomfort, irritation and aching.  

For me and for most people pain can be something that happens acutely meaning suddenly or something that accumulates over time and will fester and manifest if not dealt with. Its estimated that up to 80% of Americans alone are popping pain killers as if they were candy.

That tells me, our pain is not properly being dealt with for several reasons but one that comes to me instantly is that we don’t see pain the way God sees pain. 

When we can look at pain from a perspective of the need for the more of God, love, family, and hope, we have the opportunity to lean in to Who God says He is and What God says He can do 

And in doing so we become healed and free. One of the greatest lies of the enemy is to keep everything locked up inside you so you can never fully be free.  

In my experience, without pain it would be too easy to forget our need for God.

I am a Jesus Girl doing real life, which means I don’t know how to do it any other way but real… 

So, how does pain get there in the first place? I am not sure how it got there for you but for me. It began at a very young age.  In my book Jesus Girl Doing Real Life I go into detail about my past and the pain I endured along the way, and how I overcame it. I encourage you to get it.

But I want to be vulnerable and tell you about some of the more intense “pain points” from my own life:

1. Uncle attempted to rape me at 12
2. Gang raped at 14
3. 100lb. overweight
4. Eating disorder
5. Forced into the sex industry for 10 years
6. Abandon by my father
7. 2 miscarriages before I was married
8. Divorced
9. Wanting to kill myself
   
   

All before the age of 35…

Oh, and by the way a death sentence of cancer at the age of 42

All this pain accumulated, and I stuffed it deep down…Which then turned into Bitterness, resentment, anger, self-hatred (unloving spirit), others rejecting me, even worse was the rejection of my own self.   

I was desperate for love and attention. At some point in my life I became so messed up in my head that I actually embraced pain in a very dangerous way.

Now, I want you to understand all these painful experiences I endured were done before I had a real relationship with Jesus.  

Yes, I knew Jesus, but knowing Jesus in my head and knowing Jesus in my heart were two very different things.

I thought if I stayed in a perpetual state of pain, I would get the attention and love I so desired. This was the point in my life when everything began spiraling down into horrible choices and compromises, I was making in my life.  

I’m not saying to seek out pain for your life. Don’t worry it will find you one way or another. Pain also looks different for many but none the less, pain is pain.  

But how we respond to pain will make all the difference in your life.  

In my next blog, I’ll talk about how our outlook in dealing with pain, actually affects the outcome of our future lives.