Aselin

Pain is a funny thing. I have a pretty good pain threshold. One who has survived multiple child births, an undiagnosed broken wrist, and a self inflicted tortured adolescence I feel somewhat of an expert on the subject of enduring pain.

In the English language pain is both a noun and a verb. I completely understand this. Pain runs a spectrum of definitions.

There’s mental pain, usually brought on by life’s burdens. Loneliness, isolation, conflict all bring degrees of pain.

And of course physical pain, which makes me say things I normally don’t when it’s brought on by the blunt force trauma of my clumsiness. Or pain that wears me down with it’s relentless sting.

Few will escape the soul weighting pain of loss. The palpable heaviness in the chest that makes it hard to breathe. It’s so strong you can feel it. It’s so powerful you can see it in the face of the bearer. And while it inevitably fades, the hole left in its wake is rarely filled.

One thing about pain, it’s universal. And on this Easter weekend I reflect on such universal experiences.

I’m humbled by the pain borne thousands of years ago by the carpenter from Galilee. This week marks the anniversary of his willing entrance into Gethsemane. Where His closest friends abandoned Him, inflicting loneliness and isolation, even the conflict of abandoned friendship.

Where he endured such physical pain He sweat drops of blood. No matter how much pain I’ve borne, it’s never reached such scale.

And as He hung on the cross in full submission to the pain, He felt the loss of the presence of His Father.

Reflecting on all of this pain, grief and suffering I am humbled. I believe we all suffer degrees of pain in our lives to give us the opportunity to draw closer to divinity. In the pain I’ve endured, it is the good choices, the patient actions, and the opportunity to see outside myself that makes me a little more like Him.

So far, I have found, through all my different kinds of pain, that there is always an Easter morning. It is this truth that makes endurance worthwhile.