The Gift of Pain

Once again, here's a link to the wonderful AU Chi Alpha Community Blog that I get the privilege to be a part of. This week's theme is pain, a topic I never thought I would be able to speak about. But it's the areas that we surround with the word "never" that we will experience the most transformative healing in. So here's to pain, here's to healing, here's to feeling, and here's to being honest about the process. Enjoy, my friends.

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these are the scars deep in your heart

this is the place you were born

and this is the hole where most of your soul comes ripping out

from the places you've been torn

and it is always, always, always Yours.

-always; switchfoot

I am a dramatic person and I thrive on stories. I have read only a small handful of non-fiction books in my life and I understand greater world issues better after being able to relate it in some grand metaphorical context. Most of the time my mind runs like a super 8 camera, translating everything around me into some elaborate film I get to call the shots on. So, naturally, I become unsatisfied with the story my life is being weaved into by someone other than myself.

Starting from middle school, I wasn't satisfied with the events of my life. So I began to escape into the wonderfully inventive caves of my mind. The TV shows and movies I surrounded myself with were filled with broken stories. Families that were torn apart by death or deception, teenagers who ran away from home, forbidden loves, and misunderstood outcasts filled my imagination. My life paled in comparison and the difference seemed to be this foreign thing called "pain" and, in some weird way, I wanted it.

Continue reading.