The STRENGTH of pain

It appears to me that, at times, God walks us through what St. John of the Cross calls The Dark Night of the Soul. This is a time when God seems distant, our prayers empty and our lives barren. We might feel despair, discouraged and depressed.

Henri Nouwen writes: “There is a real pain in your heart, a pain that belongs to you. You know now that you cannot avoid, ignore or repress it. It is this pain that reveals to you how you are called to live. You are living in solidarity with the broken human race. You must distinguish carefully between your pain and the pains that have attached themselves to you…When you feel rejected, when you think of yourself as a failure and a misfit, you must be careful not to let these feelings and thoughts pierce your heart.” (The Inner Voice of Love; page 97)

Yet, struggling with the pain and heartache may be the exact place God wants us to be. Why? During this time when our senses are darkened and our desires thwarted God is preparing supernaturally illumine our spirits. All of our senses might feel empty and void, like there is a thick, dark cloud over them. We feel afflicted and far from God. Yet, the greater the darkness we journey through, the more strength and security we will discover in God.

Perhaps this is the lesson Paul learned as he wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." NIV

When I realized how weak I was, then I was on the road to gaining God’s strength.