It is sad how often we forget in our moments of pain about the power of our choices. Instead of facing the pain head-on, recongizing the hurt, and going on the best we can, we allow ourselves to become not only hurt, but miserable. I guess you could say, we tend to wallow in our pain, to focus on it, to dwell on it, and to think about it so much that it truly becomes our life. A miserably, hurting life, at that. Happiness becomes a mirage before us, and we don't know how to get out of the pit into which we have fallen. So we stay there, depressed, helpless and hurting more and more and more...Haven't we all been there? :smiles:

The people in my life who I admire the most are those people (and some of you are reading this) who can meet pain so deep that I can't understand it, and yet... even if it knocks them down for a time, get right up, and with a smile on their face, can say "God is faithful- I am blessed beyond measure!". They have discovered the beautiful part of pain- the fact that we can choose what it does to us. We can choose to totally be destroyed by it, and let misery rule our lives, or we can choose to use the pain as a stepping stone to climb a little higher on the mountain. Even in the breaking of our hearts and the shattering of our deepest dreams, we can find some of life's deepest blessings.

We all have dark valleys to meet. I don't imagine that there's one of us who hasn't met some crushing sorrow. Yet, we all have the same choice. We can choose to sink away, and let sorrow eat up our life and joy- our usefulness and the beauty of living, or we can let God use the pain that could have destroyed us to build us up.

"Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be."

-- Charles "Tremendous" Jones, motivational speaker and author

Misery is the Devil's distraction from this work. Don't let him convince you that you can't help but be miserable. God has promised strength, He has promised a way of escape for each of us. Pain is not a curse. Sorrow and heartache don't need to break us. But we have to choose what we want them to do.

The bible is full of some of the most beautiful promises about suffering and the joy we can have. We may not see the end from the beginning, and the pain may seem unbearable, but His grace is sufficient. Joy- instead of sorrow and ashes, will be given us. He gathers our tears into a bottle. He knows every throb of pain that strikes our hearts, and He wants to turn it into something beatuiful. Like the Master Refiner that He is, if we choose to allow Him, the pain will bring out the beauty that He has put in us. Like gold, we will be stronger, brighter, more beautiful than ever before.

To say it is easy to choose and do wouldn't be right. There will always be pain, and sometimes sorrow is so deep that it is all we can do to live. No, it isn't all ease and bliss, even if we do not choose to be miserable.Pain is real, but, by God's grace, we will find what we look for the most in pain. Never give up looking for the beautiful. You will find it, because it, too, is real. Broken hearts are real wounds. And even though the tears may fall so fast and so often, we aren't sure if there will be any left, take heart. There is no heart so broken that He cannot heal it. There is nothing that, if we are willing, He cannot change.

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

I don't know the pain that tomorrow could bring... I don't know what this life has in store, but I can trust Him to help me to always choose the beautiful, instead of the miserable, "For he is faithful that promised".