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Daddy has never and will never test any of us as he knows us inside out and knows what and how we are made. The difficulties we face in life come our way to show us who we really are.

I am coming to understand that pain is one of those difficulties that often approach our lives. Over the years I often wondered why pain was necessary after all it hurts and is not a great experience when we have to face it. I began to ask and seek Daddy about this as one doesn't have to look very far to see that all of us without exception have experienced pain at some stage of our lives.

While meditating one morning I began to think about the first Gulf War and those burning oil wells that Saddam Hussein lit up as he retreated from Kuwait. Such was the intensity of these fires that the smoke could be seen for hundreds of miles. Teams were drafted in urgently to figure a way to turn these things off before an environmental catastrophe set in. The experts went to work immediately using their years of experience yet everything they tried did not work. As they got together to go over things a somber mood descended over the camp as they realized that they were facing something completely different than they had ever seen before. They tried sand, water, and even digging below to somehow stop the flow of oil into the pipes yet nothing worked.

Using Pain to Heal Pain

One of the engineers proposed using fire to turn the fire off as a last resort. Many questioned his idea however in the absence of anything better they decided to give it a go. Packs of dynamite were prepared and installed as close as possible to the raging fires. Once in place a detonation took place which much to the workers surprised exterminated the fire immediately.

In the same way I am coming to understand that Daddy uses pain to heal pain. You see pain is the chisel that God uses to chip away the dead and numb parts of our new hearts that are broken down by the wounds we have picked up on our journeys. Pain was never meant to be a constant companion in our lives but merely a visitor that leaves once the work it was sent to do is done.

The reason many of us remain in pain is because we are never still enough to understand what this new pain is attempting to do. We busy our lives, understandably so, attempting to protect ourselves and shield our hearts from further pain yet while we do this we are actually stopping the very healing process responsible for setting us free. Some of us have been guarding and managing our pain for so long that we are actually unaware of much of the pain we carry. In this condition God knows that we're unable to function from the whole of our hearts and in fact are unable to even hear his voice as the pain within us screams that much louder for our attention.

This truth reminds me some years back when my son cut his knee open. While at the hospital I stood by him as they treated his wounded knee. After the small operation he told me how much more painful it was when the doctors began to touch him and put him back together. I told him that I was right by him telling him I loved him and that everything would be ok, yet he told me that he didn't even notice my presence there, never mind hear what I was telling him. When we are hurt and remain hurt by not allowing God to do his healing work we are shut down and simply spiritually blind and deaf.

Becoming Aware of Pain Inside

Another role of pain is that it is also meant to make us aware of the pain we carry within us. This was shown to me when I took one of my players some time ago to the physician as she was complaining of a discomfort in her back. Upon examining the physician told her that the problem was actually on her shoulder. When he pressed the correct spot on her shoulder she screamed very loud. Naturally we asked how could she not feel this pain and just the discomfort. The physician explained that often what we do is we begin to use a different part of our body to act as the part that is hurt so that the hurt part is protected. When we do this he said that we begin to injure this new part as it was never designed to do the job of the other. That day I realized that when we guard and protect the pain within us we actually hurt other parts of our beings and eventually what could have just been one wound multiplies itself into several.

Jesus said the first and most important commandment was to love the Lord our God with all of our heart yet this is impossible to do if we remain hurt. We need to understand that we are unable to access the whole of our hearts if we remain hurt. Quite simply put wounds shut us down and cause us to live fragmented and limited lives. Choosing to remain wounded will also mean you wounding others as you work hard to try and protect and manage your wounds. This is because hurt people hurt people just like healed people heal people.

People often asked me what it feels like to be healed. I naturally laugh at this question as I know full well that the reality of my life is that today I am a little bit more healed than I was yesterday and tomorrow I will be a bit more than today. This is a journey and there is no sale by date on it. We need to understand that when we are on the way to being healed on the road of grace God does not love us any less or involves us any less in what he has for our lives. The only thing that keeps us outside of the game and helps to create this illusion I just mentioned is choosing to remain in pain.

Peace and Life

Today choose to be someone that trusts their Daddy and stops spending their life and resources attempting to keep pain away. Failing to choose this way of trust and grace will mean that you won't accomplish anything else apart from building a shelter around you. In time you will become someone that is unable to relate to others as this approach doesn't just keep pain out but also the life and all the other beautiful things it can offer if you remain open. Furthermore your journey will not be one of progress but instead one that will go around in circles as you constantly walk around guarding the walls you have built around your pain. Always remember that the peace and life we all want usually comes after we have allowed pain to do its job. Once again pain is meant to be a visitor in your life and never a constant companion. It only sticks around when you close the fists of your hearts and hold on tight to the very thing it is trying to remove as it makes room within you so that healthier and better things can surface into your life.

It is good to Hold On Loosely to life and pain!

Pablo Giacopelli

www.holdingonloosely.com

www.uxlinlife.com