Pain is information. There are four ways pain informs us:

1. We are informed that we are alive and have the capacity to feel.

2. We are informed that something is possibly wrong and needs to be addressed.

3. We are informed that we are weak and needy of grace. We need grace from God and we need the grace God gives us through other people.

4. We are informed that God's grace is sufficient and sometimes the pain is actually the knitting of our torn places, the healing of our deepest hurts, and the mending of our broken places.

Still, it is unpleasant, sometimes unbearable, and always a challenge.

So, we need some sort of healing from it, through it, or in it.

Sometimes the healing relieves us of the pain, but, most often, the healing helps us bear it and bear up under it. It helps us channel it and grow through it.

Either way, it is still healing.

What I never want to do is mask it, ignore it, or keep it from doing what it is intended to do for me and through me. 

If pain is information, may I be willing to receive and understand its message on the road to real and ultimate healing.

Introduction to Pain from ACI on Vimeo.