Title Image: He touches our wounds and heals.
Quotes come from Dan Foster’s Medium Article: The Cost of Avoidance: Trading Temporary Pain for Lasting Growth What Pain Can Teach Us About Healing unless cited otherwise. His article is available for Medium members:
I share these quotes to encourage spiritual reflection and healing for those walking a spiritual journey following Jesus Our Messiah. Dan shares helpful insights into the choices we need to consider if we want to be on a journey of healing.
Dan reflects on his operation to repair an injury in order to be in good health to take care of wife (cancer diagnosis) and children. He talks about how he avoided surgery and accepted the pain until he realized that his family required him to be able to provide care.
He feels the warmth of His Light in his moment of pain and grief. Is the Light of His Grace and Hope present in your life?
Why we choose hurt over healing: fear
The lesson is this: To be healed, we have to allow ourselves to become vulnerable and exposed.
We assume that it’s better to hurt alone and unseen than to be open and our wounds visible to others. This is a reason that some refuse to seek out therapy or participate in counseling. The thought of sharing shameful or hurtful things about ourselves in order to change patterns of thought/behavior. Do we care more about how others perceive us than about how emotionally healthy we are?
If you’ve been disappointed, rejected, used, mocked, or shunned by others, it’s hard to be open and vulnerable. We fear being mistreated again, ignored, or not heard. This fear is part of our motivations and behaviors. Patterns that keep us in bondage to loneliness and feeling unworthy. God calls us to a journey of faith and healing: to be more like Him! Consider that God doesn’t leave us in the darkness of despair and unworthiness.
Pride Keeps us in pain
To be healed, I had to first admit my weakness and powerlessness.
Dan had to recognize his need for surgery. He couldn’t do the surgery himself, so he needed a surgeon’s treatment. Our pride serves as a cover for our unhealed wounds. This is a reason why hurting people with unresolved pain act distant, cold, and overly independent, self-reliant. It’s an act to keep people distant and hide of true nature of feelings. Do we hide our wounds from God and others? Physical wounds fester and become infected if not cleansed and treated. Emotional wounds are similar in this regard.
Touched by the Light of His Love and Redemption, this man is renewed and transformed, free to love and serve. His Light and Grace cleanses our self-righteous, pride.
Healing is for Us and Others
When it comes to pain — particularly emotional and psychological pain, whatever we don’t process, we project onto others.
Therefore, your healing is not only for you. It’s for everyone around you as well.
Do you find yourself “projecting” onto others? Psychology Today defines projection as:
“Projection is the process of displacing one’s feelings onto a different person, animal, or object. The term is most commonly used to describe defensive projection—attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another.”
Source and article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/projection
Projection is a “self-esteem” defense that allows us to escape from dealing with our own difficult emotions. The solution to this tendency: emotional acceptance and healing specifically our unhealed, painful emotions.
An important reason to work through painful emotions and heal is so that we can be a healthy, compassionate, and authentic friend, family member, etc. If we are struggling with anger, feeling unworthy, or insecure we might project this onto others instead of facing these difficult emotions.
Emotions that we don’t accept or deal with with become suppressed emotions. These emotions then arise later, often in inopportune moments of stress, anxiety, or anger. This is why that people “snap” or become overly aggressive due to perceived or slight provocations. How does a person find a path through through the difficult emotions?
Walking through pain is similar to ascending a mountain trail. One step at a time, and the trail is often winding and littered with obstacles.
Pain is the Way Through
Dan offers this insight:
The only way to truly deal with pain — emotional, physical, or psychological — is to walk straight into it.
Pain is our greatest teacher. Pain is our way through.
Pain indicates the wound and “informs” us where the injury is! Avoidance leads to immaturity, resentment, malice, bitterness, and other dark aspects of character.
3 Purposes of Pain
Pain leads us to (1). grow and mature, is an (2). important part of our journey, and (3). leads us to careful consideration of our abilities.
If you spend your life trying to avoid pain, you will never grow and mature into the person that you could be.
Pain, though difficult and often unwelcome, is a crucial part of the human journey.
It forces us to confront our limitations, face our fears, and reevaluate our priorities.
Avoidance leads to greater pain and suffering in our lives and others (that we hurt due to our own unprocessed wounds). Pain enables us to connect with ourselves and others in a authentic, graceful manner as we walk the journey of healing and faith. Knowing our limitations, walking through our fears, and evaluating our priorities focuses on what really matters: that we daily become more like Christ and love/serve others in His power and example.
Jesus walks with us. His Word and Holy Spirit guide us in our journey to become more like Him as we anticipate eternity with Him. Hope is essential to helping us to not lose focus and give up.
Pain and Loving Others
Our wounds become avenues for healing when we face them directly rather than avoiding them.
Like Christ, who turned his suffering into a redemptive act for others, we can use our own experiences of pain to foster personal growth and compassion for others.
Like Christ: His Example Isaiah 53: Berean Standard Bible
4Surely He took on our infirmities
and carried our sorrows;
yet we considered Him stricken by God,
5But He was pierced for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him,
and by His stripes we are healed.
6We all like sheep have gone astray,
each one has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid upon Him
the iniquity of us all.
It is through Jesus’ wounds that we are made whole. He is our Redeemer, Restorer, and Healer! When feeling overwhelmed, broken, and despairing–remember who He is and what He has done for you! Read and pray over Isaiah 53:11-12 and meditate on His victory!
11After the anguish of His soul,
He will see the light of life and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many,
and He will bear their iniquities.
12Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great,
and He will divide the spoils with the strong,
because He has poured out His life unto death,
and He was numbered with the transgressors.
Yet He bore the sin of many
and made intercession for the transgressors.
This field represents a place of beauty, life, and nourishment as the light rays shine down. A.I image.
Beautiful Truth:
Favorite quote from Dan’s article:
It’s through our most profound wounds that we often discover our greatest strengths and capacities for empathy.
By allowing ourselves to be touched and healed by our suffering, we align ourselves with a deeper understanding of our human and spiritual journey.
May God’s love, mercy, compassion, and presence guide you on your journey of healing! If we will invite Him into our sorrows and brokenness, He will redeem them and keep us near to His presence. Understand that I write these words, and share these insights as one who faces his own shortcomings and brokenness. In His grace and love, I rest upon a firm foundation when the sorrows seem overwhelming and the journey wearisome.
Because He lives, we can face tomorrow. He is Our Blessed Assurance, Our Firm Foundation!
Dr. Scott Eilers’ take on facing pain and lessons we can learn:
Words of Grace & Hope 
We can truly come alongside another struggling individual when we have seen how Christ brought us through the same or similar situation. Thanks for the encouragement.
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