Pain Exists
Why Pain Exists
People of many faiths have asked, “Why does Deity let pain exist?” I’m not talking about only one kind of pain. I am talking about all kinds of pain that we endure. From the physical pain of skinning a knee to the emotional pain of loosing a loved one.
Why do the Gods let us, no need us, to experience pain?
Simply, pain is used as a teaching tool. The Gods do not inflict pain upon us. We do it to ourselves. Not intentionally. We don’t want to skin our knees when we fall. It is the way of life.
During our lives we learn lessons; some can be painful.
Generally, the more painful the experience, the more we remember the lesson. Learning to walk and to ride a bike involves falling. Pain motivates you to learn skills and to avoid falling again. It teaches you not to fall and to stay up during the task.
Emotional pain teaches us different things. For example, if you endured childhood taunts by mean kids, you learned that words can emotionally injure a person. Hopefully, one learns to avoid cutting down other people. (Remember the Law of Three!)
What about the death of a loved one? What does that teach us? I lost a friend when he committed suicide. What did that teach me? It taught me to cherish the people around me and to feel compassion for another person.
I remember the year of my 16th birthday. I lost my dear four legged friend, Cheesy. At the veterinarian’s office, she grabbed my hand with the energy of “I’m not ready to go yet” as she slipped away. The pain of the loss of Cheesy was intense. But then, for the first time in my life, I was visited by a spirit who had passed to the other side. Cheesy gave me a sense that she was okay. Better than okay.
Without going through such pain and loss, I would not know in my heart that death is not the end.
When you lose someone important to you, you gain a whole new understanding. With the loss you can now understand love completely.
As hard and unrelenting as pain can be, we still need it to help us learn and therefore grow. Without pain, we can’t experience true compassion, trust and love.
Blessed be,
http://thehiddenchildrenofthegoddess.com/
GoddessHasYourBack.com 
Nice blog entry.
I mostly agree with you, with some differences.
I don’t believe in karma or law of three. 2012 wiped the last doubt from my mind. Bad things happen to good people, people who behave nicely, get treated badly, and it has nothing to do with them deserving it, with what they did in this or previous life. I refuse to accept an explanation that says the rape victim deserved to be raped, either because of what she/he did in a previous life, or to learn something.
I believe people do the best they can, and most people have been taught wrong, badly or not at all. Most people don’t have much to give from.
I believe an abuser abuses, because she/he is repeating what she/he was taught.
And I don’t believe she/he was taught that by God, but by other people, who in turn were taught by other people, and so on for all eternity. It was just that at some point something went wrong, and caused the chain of negativity and pain.
Secondly, I believe much of the suffering is in our thinking and attitudes. I remember a documentary of a nine years old prostitute in India. She didn’t think she was raped and abused and horribly violated, that she had had her childhood robbed, her chances destroyed, her life tainted… She didn’t see her life as suffering. No, she was proud of being a woman, working, and doing her job well. To me that attitude was shocking and eye-opening. Me with all my knowledge of psychology and physiology and White European mindset and attitudes thought the girl was a victim and must be suffering horribly. Any Western 9-years-old in the same conditions would be. But this girl wasn’t. What was the difference? It was not her psyche or physiology. In that way she was just as any other 9-years-old. She wasn’t more developed or mature or wise. It was the attitudes of people around her.
I was heartbroken the whole 2012. Someone I thought was a good guy, wasn’t, and he wasn’t very nice to me. The heart-ache is not over yet, but I’m getting there. Nothing has changed, except my thinking. And it was my thinking that caused the heart-ache.
Broken bones, bruises, skinned knee… I have fibromyalgia. I know I have kind of caused it myself. It is the physical response to stress, anxiety, fear, PTSD, bullying and such. That is… because of my thinking and attitudes.
To me, God is there to help us deal with this stinking thinking. God has given us all the good people around us, the ones who care, support, comfort…
But – the interesting thing with the thinking “how can you believe in God who lets bad things happen?” is that they never ask “how can you not believe in God who lets good things happen?” That’s seen as some sort of whitewash, denial, refusing to accept the truth… Why is only the bad things happening “the truth”?
LikeLike
Ketutar,
Thank you for your kind words, “Nice blog entry. I mostly agree with you, with some differences.”
First of all I am sorry for your pain.
I feel you raise many important and profound points.
At this moment, I’ll be able to share a few thoughts related to some of the details you mentioned.
First, I agree with you about how people can be victimized. My brother nearly killed me by nearly drowning me in a swimming pool. One of my close friends killed himself after being abused by a community that hated him for his sexual orientation.
Horrible things, as you mentioned, happen.
The question is: What do we do with pain? It can be helpful to grieve, to protect ourselves, perhaps to testify against a perpetrator.
Then what? I am sharing ideas about the potential choice to learn from the Gods the truth about compassion and love for others. So, perhaps, eventually, bloody and recovering, we might relearn to love.
I can only speak for myself. Each day, I put in effort to meditate, to do ritual and to get myself to peace. It’s certain that sometimes, my painful past disempowers me and I actually feel depressed.
However, I take in the blessings that I have in life. I experience gratitude. And I move to express love when and how I can.
Ketutar,
again, I am sorry for your pain.
Thank you for sharing your journey in your posted comment.
Blessed Be,
Moonwater
LikeLike
You are lovely 🙂 Thank you for your kind words 🙂
Again, I agree with you – it’s a question of what we do with it… I believe that is the question of why we live at all. What to do with all that life…
I don’t even consider myself much suffering… of course, fibromyalgia can be a bitch, but – I live with it every day. It’s as normal to me as it was not to be in pain before. But compared to… depends totally on what one chooses to compare with, doesn’t it? Pain and suffering are so relative… I would gladly suffer worse if it could take away the slightest pain from those I love, and wouldn’t consider it even a big sacrifice…
But thank you for your response and for it being so nice. 🙂
I do hope I have not offended you in any way or given you the impression I’m arguing with you, or so.
LikeLike
Ketutar,
Thank you for engaging deeply with the material of my blog post.
Blessed Be,
Moonwater
LikeLike