The Well Magazine Fall/Winter 2015 | страница 8

Living Well The Alarming Ministry of Pain Could your pain be launching you into your purpose? By Melanie Staggers In 1994, I endured great the sound of an alarm pain. After 13 years of that could develop us? marriage and three daughThat our pain is an ters, my husband announced alarm that just might he wanted out. No warnsave our life? ings. No “obvious” signs I have often heard that that a major transition was people experience brewing in my marriage. “great pain” just beNo arguing. No unacfore their appendix counted money. No unacburst. And, it is only counted time. No obvious the pain that reveals indications. this serious medical Unexpectedly, he came condition. The pain of home one evening and made an expectant mother the big announcement. indicates that it is time “I don’t want to be marto give birth. And, as Melanie Staggers and granddaughter, Ariel and daughters Felecia, Aylesa and Tiara. we all know, chest ried anymore.” My marriage ended in pains are sometimes that moment. I had no voice in the matter. There is no negotiating with the sounding of an alarm that your very life is threatened. the will of another person; you just have to acquiesce to the request--pain Perhaps, we should re-think how we interpret pain in every area and all. Within two weeks, he was out of the house. Talk about in of our lives. pain. P ain is suffering or discomfort caused by an illness or injury. Pain is that nasty four letter word we all seek to avoid. Yet, no one can escape it. Many Christians have wrongfully convinced themselves that pain is not an element of life that God ever wants us to experience. We conclude that Jesus paid it all so that we can escape the experience of any discomfort. Physical pain is oftentimes tolerated much more readily than emotional pain. Emotional pain is typically viewed in the “Christian” arena as a demonic attack that must be “rebuked’ and avoided. However, it is the emotional pains of life that develop our character. It is emotional pains that allow us to “work out our soul salvation” a.k.a. the sancti