Have you ever heard the song “Broken,” by Lifehouse?  I just did for the first time.  It seemed to be exactly what I needed on this miserable Monday morning.  One lyric in particular struck a chord (pun) with me:

“In the pain there is healing.”

Why do we have pain?

I typed that sentence, “Why do we have pain?” into Google’s™ search bar, and a page from kidshealth.org popped up.  Here’s an excerpt (emphasis added):

…People don’t come with warning lights, like the lights on a car dashboard that let the driver know when the car is low on oil or gas.  We need the sensation of pain to let us know when our bodies need extra care. It’s an important signal.

When we sense pain, we pay attention to our bodies and can take steps to fix what hurts. Pain also may prevent us from injuring a body part even more. If it didn’t hurt to walk on a broken leg, a person might keep using it and cause more damage…

So it looks like Lifehouse got it right.  In the pain, there is healing after all.  When we feel pain, it means we’re on our way to recovery, or at the very least, we’re on our way to realising that something is wrong; with any luck, we’ll take the necessary steps to fix the problem.

I used to hate pain, but I’m starting to recognise that it is good in its own right.

So I’m going to become a cutter.

Just kidding.  I could never do that—I would be too queasy.  But seriously…I’m going to try to embrace pain that I feel instead of shoving it away to the recesses of my mind, like I normally do.  That doesn’t mean I intend to purposely hurt myself, or cause unnecessary pain; rather, I’m just not going to let it scare me any more.

For anyone in pain this Monday morning, I recommend this song—“Broken,” by Lifehouse (and thanks Tierra, for the recent recommendation):

And if you are hurting today, maybe it will help to know…

…I feel your pain.

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