When Pain Seems Too Overwhelming

Pain brings us to our knees. It robs us of our innate joy and replaces it instead with a gaping emptiness. It seeps into our soul and hammers away until all that’s left is our heart shatters into a million tiny pieces.

Pain tricks us. It convinces us that the sadness, hurt, betrayal, grief, and shame we are enduring is our new permanent state and that it will never leave us. And not only this, but it makes us believe that we are the only ones on this planet dealing with these heavy, burdensome emotions. We are the only ones who know what it’s like to have pain walking alongside us on this journey.

Pain consumes us. It lingers in the deepest crevasses of our bones, affecting the way we think, feel, and act. It affects how we sleep, eat, talk, interact, work, and socialize. It sets up camp and threatens to make our heart its new home.

But the thing about pain that we so often forget is that it provides us the ability to start a new — to rid ourselves of all that we were and rebuild our mind and soul into exactly who we want to be. When something has been completely destroyed, that means that there is a fresh slate for a beautiful, breathtaking masterpiece to take its place.

Pain breaks us down so that we can stand back up with more conviction, courage, and strength. It allows us to gather up the pieces of ourselves that we love, leave behind the ones that no longer serve us, and build ourselves into someone we didn’t even know we were capable of becoming. When we look in the mirror, we will see someone who fought through the darkness and heartache and refused to allow pain to win. Who refused to allow pain be the end of their story.