As long as we live in this life, pain will be our companion.  Pain comes in all forms, but its main conductor is always human. Bills and circumstances might cause disappointment or discomfort, but deep hurt always comes through people. Makrothumia is the Greek word for long-suffering, which is a fruit of the spirit. Another definition for long-suffering in the original language is to “breath-hard-long”…like a woman breathing through the pain of her contraction.  As we learn to suffer long, we will gain the ability to patiently bear with the failings of the weak, especially when it hurts us. If we halt when we are hurt, we are in danger of  growing hard of heart; this is often a self-protection reflex. Understanding that pain is part of the process of maturity has helped me to welcome it, instead of resent it. Resisting will only cause more pain, and might very well keep us from healing. Pain will not do its designed eternal work within us while we resent the hurt and give in to feelings that we deserve better. There is no gain by pain if our sole motivation is to stop it rather than learn by it. Those who willingly go into the fire of pain are set free from the limiting ropes that bind them. They will walk out of their personal fires not smelling like smoke, unbound, and become an attraction to others who will give praise to God because of what they have seen done in the life of one who has passed through the fire of pain as an overcomer rather than a victim.

Hearts of Flesh Bleed
I’d rather have pain than porosis (hardness)
It’s better to hurt than be hard
If I would be formed in His image
Like Him I’ll be bruised and be scarred

Since my Lord was made perfect through suffering
Then even in this let me share
Taste His grief, feel his pain, through men’s buffering
Till all pride of self worth is laid bare

For stony hearts wince not at chastening
But scourgings make hearts of flesh bleed
And broken hearts yield to this mercy
While proud hearts stay blind to their need

Lord save me from vain love of comfort
And take from me my heart of stone
I know hearts of flesh know more suffering
But they also feel love like Your own

~Am