Something Good

 

It is in the wee hours of the morning that I usually get pumped up with ideas and whatnot, and maybe a little help from coffees or teas. I know it’s unhealthy but I guess, it is more beneficial emotionally than physically.

I have been storing up a bundle of feels lately. I have been wallowing in the pain that I have forgotten about the good things I would get from this experience. What experience, you might wonder? I would say, it was an experience common to us mortals, well, even gods of mythology, it was an experience with the matters of the heart. Eww, I sound melodramatic. *cringe*

I have read an article about not dating a writer. It was written that one of the reasons why you shouldn’t date a writer was because he/she would write about your break up or use the pain from your break up to write something. Couldn’t be more true.

It is easier to wallow in pain than to stand up to the pain because as Augustus Waters said in The Fault In Our Stars, “pain demands to be felt.” You need to feel pain to feel the process of learning. Even if you have mastered the art of “numbing” yourself to the pain, you WOULD eventually feel it. Why not overcome it before you get too cold from numbing yourself? I know, I know, easier said than done.

Pain has its own way of seeping into our system. It has its own levels and degrees. Some you could just shrug off after a day, some could leave you curled up in your bed for a week, or maybe months, some could leave you in misery for years, but no matter how long it stays, you have to let it go.

“Let go and let God.”

You have seen that quote countless of times and it might have inspired you for a moment or maybe it is your mantra today, but let me tell you my interpretation on that quote.

Letting go of something meant you allowed it to go… you had the option of not allowing it to go but you CHOSE to release it. You have relinquished your hold on it and allowed God to take hold of it. In a way, you could say that you’re letting God handle whatever it is that you were letting go, and that would mean that you are giving God the authority over something that gripped you for some time and you are giving Him the power to do anything He wants to it.

“Let God” is not just about handing or passing the pain to God, it is more of believing in His power and having faith in His ability to turn something distressing into something good. Many times we are blinded by the pain that we don’t see we are losing focus on the path that we should take. Our vision were obscured by what we feel that we lost sight of what was real and what we should be doing. I have said earlier that pain should be felt because joy would not be apparent without anguish, so as light without the darkness. But it is tempting to wallow in self-pity and drown in the pools of misery.

It may surprise you that nowhere in the Bible are we told to ‘resist temptation’. Instead, we are advised to refocus our attention because resisting a thought doesn’t work. It only intensifies our focus on the wrong thing and strengthens its allure. You don’t defeat temptation by fighting the feeling of it. The more you fight a feeling, the more it consumes and controls you. You strengthen it every time you think it. Since temptation always begins with a thought, the quickest way to neutralize its allure is to turn your attention to something else. Don’t fight the thought, just change the channel of your mind and get interested in another idea. Learn More -http://purposedriven.com/

I saw that  status update from Purpose Driven Life’s Facebook and somehow I have likened it to dealing with pain. It’s true that the more you fight it, the more it becomes alluring, the more you want people to understand you, the more you want others to empathize your situation, but that results to vanity. You see only your self, your feelings and not how others are feeling. The more you fight it, the more it consumes you. So when it comes to pain, let it go and hand it to God, He knows what to do with it. That’s what it means to refocus too. Do not look at the pain but look at God. If you continue looking at Him, you will eventually find yourself thinking of other things besides your pain. Looking at God is like a drug, once you see His goodness and His awesomeness, it won’t be enough, you would ask for more but that’s where the similarity ends, unlike drugs, God is not bad for your health, it is otherwise.

When our visions are fogged by the pain, the quickest way to elude its tempting pull into misery is by refocusing our eyes on the Lord. When you feel the overwhelming fog of pain that surrounds you, look for the light, there will always be that light behind the fog. How else would you see the fog if there were only darkness? Don’t focus on the fog, focus on the lighted path. There will be fog in the path but you will never be lost if you search for the light.

What am I trying to say? In our walk with Christ, there will be pain, I assure you, there will be a lot of heart aches and heart breaks, but do not be discourage, for we have Light that guides us to the right path. No matter how thick the fog is there would be a light that would shine in the darkness. Hold on to that light. Continue walking towards it. Don’t fight the fog, instead, hold up the light. Let it shine on your path, one step at a time.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.

Philippians 4:8

Refocus your pain into something good, better yet, focus on God.