thesoulpurposedotorg

September is National Pain Awareness Month (probably along with many other things). Pain is such a subjective experience and certainly not one to be embraced but rather endured. I recently read through my journal and found this reflection on suffering. I’d been in a flare-up of chronic pain about a year ago when I wrote this. Trust me – I do whatever I can to treat and avoid pain. However, it is my daily companion and this is a personal reflection on that experience.

“This causes me to reflect on the meaning of pain in my life and the suffering of Christ. I think this can only be understood in the mystical sense. We are told that when we suffer for Christ’s sake, we share in the glory of Christ. I never have understood this. It was taught to me as a form of hope in the afterlife but I think that misses the point.

When Christ is understood as the second person of the Trinity and not merely Jesus of Nazareth, when Christ is understood as God’s reflection in Creation and as the realization of living fully human and fully divine, then this suffering of the physical body is a share of Christ’s suffering. Each of us bears what is our lot for the sake of eternal purposes beyond this individual life. Truly one does not know divinity in this life except through the pain of being sculpted through life’s experiences for God’s purposes.

It is in this sensed that I understand my own suffering which is truly minimal compared to the need for it. The balance of dark and light, joy and sorrow, good and evil, the poles necessary for creation all require a modicum of suffering. And so I endure this pain for a purpose unknown to me but glorious just the same. It is an acceptance that comes from lifelong love of Christ.