Life is So Horribly Painful

 Life is so very painful. No, really, it is horribly painful. Oh, if you’re happy and enjoying things, you don’t notice it. But stop for a minute and think about it. 

From the moment you’re born, you feel the pain that life is going to be. For 9 months, you’re cradled in a warm soft environment that provides for every need. No worries, probably very little actual pain because of Mother's system protecting you. Certainly no grief. 

Then you’re forced through a narrow canal. The bones in your head are constructed so they compress and overlap to allow you to slip through more easily. Yet, you enter the world screaming from that pain and the shock of cold air and the tugging of rubber coated hands and glaring bright lights. Your mother is probably making a similar noise, because giving birth is horribly painful...unless they drug Mama up. 

The first few years you’re coddled but constantly having to beg for food and warmth, and a dry bottom, and shots, and to be held and cuddled. If you get sick, you can’t tell anyone and cry to get the message out, but it takes so much effort you get exhausted. You hurt.

Once you’re on your feet, you stumble and bump every protrusion on your body. You get sick and no one can understand you, so you cry. When you get hurt, you cry. You hurt physically and in your tiny heart. You weep from it. 

Finally, you can make yourself understood! But now they don’t understand you! They won’t let you do things. Sometimes you do them and get hurt and they yell at you, even though you’re sobbing and in pain. You hurt all over, even your brain, because you can’t understand why it has to be so painful. And your heart because they wound you with words.

Teenagers. Ugh. Whoever invented the teen years was just cruel, right? Broken bones, broken hearts, broken egos, broken dreams, broken minds. Everything breaks. And no one understands you! You’re in pain, terrible pain. And no one gets it. They yell more and it hurts more. And you hate everyone and it hurts so terribly you want to die. And sometimes you do.

Adulthood. If you survived this long, it is bound to get better, right? No. Life is horribly painful. 

Now, you’ll deal with broken people. You have miserable jobs or lost jobs. There are bills, lots of bills. There are medical issues. You have wrecked hearts, wrecked dreams, wrecked egos, wrecked minds. Then your car gets wrecked. You get hurt and you weep, but no one understands. You hurt.

Life continues to deal out things that break you. Marriages break. Your children break. Spouses die, children die. Grief slays you for years. Life becomes a horrible nightmare where you’re watching every precious thing put in a hole in the ground. You are not hurting. You’re in agony. 

Life hurts. It hurts so horribly that it is a miracle when we survive it. If we survive it with a smile, it is the greatest miracle of all. 

But we don’t notice all of that. We live in the miraculous. We see the beauty of the screaming baby and forget the raging pain it took to bring it into the world. Mother cradles that tiny bundle and speaks to it. The crying stops, the eyes open, and it stills to listen to the most beautiful sound it will ever hear in its life. Pain is gone, forgotten with that sound. 

With every broken moment, there is a miracle following that erases the memory of pain. We forget the pain, though some pain may linger for many years. It is the miraculous moments that keep us from cracking up. The miraculous mends our hearts, mends our minds, and mends our souls. 

There are times pain is so bad we will always remember it. Death doesn’t just hurt, it leaves an indelible mark. You don’t get over death. But for most of life’s pain, we will never remember what we experienced when it happened. We remember the essence of it, our reactions to it. We can describe how we felt, but we don’t feel it. For grief, this happens in time. It is probably the most devastating pain in existence because you don't get over losing half of yourself.

However, you never forget the miraculous. We never forget the moment we held that baby and heard it cry. In 70 years, it will still bring tears to our eyes, a smile to our face, and joy to our hearts. A miraculous event will temper every painful event we experience in our life. 

We never forget the day we met the person we fell in love with, married, and lost. Never. Yet, when our child marries, we forget the awful teen years and pray for a long and happy life. The kind of life that in that moment, we have lived. Because we forget the horrible pain of life. For a moment.

I have survived on the miraculous because to do otherwise would destroy me. The prophet Jeremiah said, It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore, will I hope in him. Lamentations 3:22-24.

Life starts over every morning. New pains and we may carry the pain of yesterday with us but the miraculous of today is waiting to help us forget the pain of yesterday. It isn’t always evident until it’s over, but when you see it, hang on tightly. It is there. 

Because He is faithful.