We all have painful experiences in life, but redeemed pain is more impressive than removed pain. What good can be found within in our pain?

Sometimes I am given a gift voucher.

It has no value tangibly in itself. It is but a piece of plastic the size of a credit card.

The value lies within what has been loaded onto it. Some kind person has placed a dollar value into its electronic magnetic memory (don’t ask me how this works).

Then, if I remember that I have this card and the money on it, I can go to a store and ‘redeem’ the value of what has been placed on this card.

I can exchange the card and receive back something good.

We don’t use the word ‘redeem’ very much but it comes from the two words re- ‘back’ + emere ‘buy’.

Redeem means to ‘buy back’.

I present the card and the shop owner buys it back to the value placed on the card.

I would like to suggest you have a card in our purse or wallet and on it contains all the painful experiences you have had.

Ouch, for some this card would have a lot of weight to it. A lot of energy, grief, pain, loss, anger, resentment, bitterness, etc is locked up in that card.

That card is heavy and you carry it around with you everywhere you go.

It eats away at us. It changes us. The thinking patterns in our brain are trained by this burden.

What can be done with the energy of this pain?

One response is to stubbornly resist its presence and potential for good.

I was talking with someone and they said these words.

‘I’m not going to be one of those people that stands up and says this was one of the best things that happened. That God has made something good out of it all’

My heart sank because here was someone who had decided to resist God. To resist kindness and healing.

They were heading to a place where the ‘Pain card’ inside their heart was never going to be brought to God for God to buy back and return goodness.

It’s my experience that actually the ‘pain card’ is most likely to gather interest on its dark investment.

The pain doesn’t diminish, but actually can grow and morph into bitterness and other malignant growths. Stubbornness becomes a fortified wall that needs a constant reinforcement from the inside.

The pain can become an identifying mark of a person. They are known for the pain they have been through and for the way the pain leaks out and poisons others.

If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children. Richard Rohr

Redeemed pain

Redeemed pain is more impressive than removed pain. Philip Yancey

This week I sat with a man whose wife had died suddenly. They had shared a marriage of 50 plus years. Now, four years later, there was still a grief, a loss, a pain.

It was good in the sense that this level of pain is a healthy sign of being fully human.

I was gently curious to know what this pain had taught him.

Could something be redeemed out of this pain?

What had he discovered from this place of heart struggle?

Was, as he presented his ‘pain card’ (we all carry one) to God, something of Godly goodness being returned into his life?

As I drove home from my conversation, I remembered the lyrics of an old chorus:

Something beautiful, something goodAll my confusion He understoodAll I had to offer Him was brokenness and strifeBut he made something beautiful of my life.
Gloria Gaither / Willam J. Gaither

The making of something beautiful requires a willingness to hand over the ‘pain card’ for God to buy back and return to us their presence.

What’s on your pain card?

Can your pain be redeemed, bought back by God, and have something beautiful and good grown out of it?

Or is just going to sit in your wallet or purse quietly growing mould, rot, and poison.

Every time you see it, you revisit the stories of accumulation and frequent flyer points are added to its weight.

Redeeming the pain

Redeeming the pain

I have a little gift voucher
Given to me by life
It’s tucked deep in my wallet
It’s full of pain and strife

I carry it with me everywhere
And on it I can add much woe
Points of pain user miles
Keeping me deathly low

Oh, this voucher has some power
From it I can be quite sour
Spilling my pain all over others
A victim has some nasty power

To recognise this as a voucher
Something all of us do hold
Might help me to take this pain
Redeem it and turn it into gold

I see this card
I see what it does hold
I turn it over to a redeeming saviour
He knows the pain untold

I wonder what he will do with it
What lives he will transform
As I present my pain
Maybe some hearts will begin to warm

‘Thy kingdom come’ I pray
Your redemptive plan to show
But for that to happen
Then my Kingdom must go

I lay down my voucher
Points accumulated from the day
What can we do with this Lord
Is all that I can say

Barry Pearman

Only God can reimburse

I carry a ‘pain card’. We all do.

It sits there, mostly silent, but sometimes it erupts into wild anger at injustices, then sometimes into a self-loathing disgust. It’s full of echos, shadows, and ghosts that want to take me into a hole.

But I can also bring it for redemption. Have it cashed in for something of worth.

I think of my favourite friend called Job.

He had a broken world experience. Caught up as a pawn in some sort of spiritual chess match between God and an angel called Accuser.

Out of this broken world experience, Job could have had a pain card overflowing with entitlement debt.

‘You owe me – God, world, life’

Yet, this pain was a place of redeeming. Of turning him closer to God than to a stubborn self-reliance.

He found a new life out of the struggle with the old.

God can take your broken world experiences, your ‘pain card’ and return it to something good.

Can you pray this dangerous prayer?

‘God, redeem my pain card (we all have one) into something good. Thy Kingdom come, my kingdom go’

Questions?
Comments?
Email me 🙂📨
barry@turningthepage.co.nz

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Quotes to consider

Those who do not turn to face their pain are prone to impose it. Terrence Real
If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become cynical, negative, or bitter. This is the storyline of many of the greatest novels, myths, and stories of every culture. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children. Richard Rohr
To pray and actually mean ‘thy Kingdom come,’ we must also be able to say ‘my kingdoms go.’ Richard Rohr
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Redeemed pain is more impressive than removed pain. Philip Yancey — Redeemed Pain

Questions to answer

God can redeem the pain, ‘buy it back’ and return something good. Have you had an experience like this?
Your ‘Pain card’ ( we all have one) has echoes and ghosts on it. What would it be like to present this portion of your life to a safe non-fixing friend?
Redeemed pain is more impressive than removed pain. What value to the world does real life painful experiences hold?