Pain

I recently cut my index finger and had to get several stitches.  No fun.  As my finger is in the process of healing, parts of it have been quite numb.   As the numbness is starting to wear off in certain spots, I feels bursts of pain.  At first I was surprised by my genuine elation over the pain in my hand.  I quickly realized that my happiness was an indicator of the health of my finger.  Both feeling the pain and experiencing the healing are good things.  

I have always been a lover of music.   As the numbness wore off, the Lumineers song Stubborn Love began to play like a soundtrack to my finger injury.  The line "it is better to feel pain, then nothing at all" captures this concept.  Thank you Lumineers for reminding me of this truth.  

My finger injury was a small cut requiring a few stitches and some time to heal.  However life often brings much deeper cuts and profound times of loss.   What do we do?  Do we feel the pain that life brings so suddenly into our midst or do we bury it?   Jerry Sittser, a man who has experienced deep and tragic loss provides wise and beautiful words in his book, A Grace Disguised.   He says,  "But this depth of sorrow is the sign of a healthy soul, not a sick soul.  Sorrow indicates that people who have suffered loss are living authentically in a world of misery, and it expresses the emotional anguish of people who feel pain for themselves or for others.  Sorrow is noble and gracious.  It enlarges the soul until the soul is capable of mourning and rejoicing simultaneously, of feeling the world's pain and hoping for the world's healing at the same time.  However painful, sorrow is good for the soul."

I greatly appreciate the depth and truth in Sittser's words.  It is encouraging in the process of moving toward my own pain and toward the pain in others. As the numbness wears off, experiencing pain can expand the soul in beautiful ways.