pain is pain

I woke up this morning thinking about pain. It was a strange thing to have on my mind.

Pain is humbling.

It's strange to think of pain as humbling. When I imagine pain, I feel mostly fear. When I think of pain, sometimes I feel anger towards our sufferings. But when I experience pain, I can only use the word humbling.

I am humbled by the blessing of health and the mercy of God. It goes against my nature. My nature is to complain about the pain, and say, "Why me?" But incredibly, instead, it is the time I become most aware of my frailty, my weakness, my need for salvation.

The other thing about pain is that it's not really measurable or comparable. I'm not referring to aches, I'm referring to pain that forces you to stop what you're doing. Stop walking. Stop eating. Stop smiling. Bury your head under a pillow. Gasp. Freeze. Whatever you do...

For some people, it takes a lot of pain to bring him or her to this. For others, it doesn't take much. Sometimes, we think of one as "strong" and the latter as "weak", but who is to judge another person's feeling. Pain is pain is pain is pain.

We aren't invincible.