The pain was excruciating. A couple of times last week, I encountered nocturnal leg cramps in the middle of the night. Over the years, this has been a battle for me. Unfortunately, leg cramps happen suddenly and without warning. Though I had not had them in a while, for two nights cramps attacked both of my calves, causing almost unbearable pain. I drank pickle juice and licked salt. I tried to pray them away, wiggle them away, and wish them away, but to no avail.
The pain was there. The pain was real. The pain was bad. I had to walk through the pain until it was over.
Life can be described similarly. Without warning and without mercy, terrible pain enters our lives. As children of God, we are not exempt from pain. In fact, the Bible tells us, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:12
In most cases I don’t know what readers of this blog are going through in their personal lives, but this I do know: Life is peppered with all kinds of pain, and each of us will be touched by some kind of pain. While it is nice to confess, “Because I am a child of God, I shall live a pain-free life,” that is simply not reality.
In the middle of the night, as I was suffering intense leg pain, I got up and walked through the pain. Eventually, as I walked through the pain, it left me. I still felt the tenderness for a few days, but I walked victoriously through the pain.
As you walk through pain, God can be trusted to bring you through victoriously. It might feel tender for a while, but healing comes for the child of God. Never lose sight of the end of the story. Jesus willingly suffered the greatest pain because he knew the end of the story, and so do we. Scripture shows us in Revelation 21:3-4:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
In the middle of the night when pain suddenly hit me, I walked through it. It hurt as I walked through it, but the hurt gave way to healing. Has your life been hit with enormous pain? Walk through it. Walk through it even when it hurts. Pain does not have the final word in a Christian’s life, God does!