Set Me Free: Devotions From Time of Grace MinistryChikamu

SET ME FREE FROM PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS: I HURT Pain in and of itself is not bad. In fact, it's actually good. Pain messages tell the truth. They tell you that something is wrong, perhaps very wrong, and they tell you exactly where the problem lies. Without pain messages you could easily bleed to death or suffer serious and life-threatening infections. That said, pain makes life miserable. Chronic pain--fibromyalgia, migraines, neuralgia--makes it miserable all the time. Pain drains energy and leaves you exhausted. Pain keeps you from being productive, makes you crabby, and turns your life inward. Usually when people say "this day and age," they are groaning from the decline in morality and rise of crime and cruelty. "This day and age," however, has also provided us with a wide array of legal narcotics that ease even severe pain and provide peace and rest to people recovering from major surgeries or to people dying of painful illness. Pain can also be redemptive. St. Paul said, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:10,11). Pain makes us see our need for God. Pain helps us share the experience of Christ himself. Pain cures us of our fantasy that earth is a paradise and makes us long for heaven.