Purpose in Pain - Finding Meaning in the Tough Times

Pain is anything but random.  It is the precursor to growth and it contains within itself the very ingredients for that growth.  It's opportunity that we would much prefer to pass on, but it's opportunity nonetheless.  Sometimes the pain is horrific, at other times it's simply irritating.  Pain most certainly runs the gamut.  But regardless of the intensity with which it befalls us, it is opportunity knocking and growth waiting to happen.

Despite all of that, we tend to see pain as nothing but pain.  We attach misfortune to it.  We often see it as the result of someone else's selfish or foolish choices.  It is the worst of fate unleashed at the worst of times.  It interrupts our momentum, steals our joy, ransacks our hope, and pillages our hearts.  And because it does all of that and more, we see no value in it at all.  But value is there.  Opportunity for growth sits waiting in the smoke and ashes.  Pain is painful, sometimes beyond words to describe.  But it is also opportunity.