Pain

I found something I wanted to share with you. So I will quickly. I endured a severe headache all night long, last night, and then God, in his providence, had me read this from my Charles Spurgen morning and evening devotional:

Faith triumphs trial...faith pulls back the mask on the face of trouble, and discovers the angel beneath. For first, the trial is not so heavy as it might have been. Second, the trouble is not so severe as we deserve to have borne and third, the affliction is not so crushing as the burden others had to carry.

...faith sees that in her worst trial, there is nothing penal; there is not a drop of God's wrath in it; it is all sent in love.

Faith says of her grief, 'This is a badge of honour, for the child must feel the rod', and then she sings of the sweet result of her sorrows, because they work her spiritual good. These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Then he ended with a sort of poem or song that he must have known or wrote. I'm not sure.

All I meet I find assists me

in my path to heavenly joy;

Where, though trials now attend me,

trials never more annoy.

Blest there with the weight of glory

Still the path I'll ne'er forget,

But, exulting, cry, it led me

To my blessed Savior's seat.

That was my encougment when I woke this morning. Whenever I get headaches I find myself in this awful pit of despair. I can't see out of it. I cry out to the Lord all the while, release me from this pain. release your child from this pain. Please I beg you. I beg you. The pain is an experience that removes me far from earthly possesions or longings. All I want is freedom and all I feel is trapped. Never to be freed.

It's in these moments where I loose sight of God's love and question his plan. Why would he, my maker, die on a cross for me in order to give me life and then lead me into pain? I can't understand. And yet, I am ashamed when I read Charles Spurgen's words. Where had my faith gone? The bible says that faith can move mountains. Where is my faith that my Creator knows what he is doing with his creation? Where is my faith that acknowledges that this trial was sent in love to further my spirtual good? I pray that in my trials, specifically my health trials, that I will be able to behold a faith that not only trusts my maker in his plan but that counts it a joy to suffer pain so that I may be able to catch a glimpse of what my God endured for me. ...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...

Sometimes I wonder though...why do I want to know his pain? What good will it do me to know his pain? I don't need this pain! And then when the pains over, I get my life together and collect my thoughts and come up with an answer that goes something like this:

Sienna, you want to know his pain so that you can somehow catch a glimpse of what he suffered for your sake, that you might be able to appriciate His death that much more in order to give him more glory and honour and fufill your chief end. Sienna, you want to appriciate his death so you can more fully understand that there are causes and situations worth fighting for in the name of Jesus. By His death, He gave us life. Thus life is worth fighting for since the Son of our Creator died for it. The lives of others are worth fighting for. They're souls are worth fighting for. That is what you suffer for. So that you will understand the importance of human life and it's purpse.

So I try to talk to myself. Granted, it's easier once my pain is no more. But I've gotten here and next time the pain comes, I'll be that much more equipped to stand firm. To fight the good fight.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Isaiah 53:3