How has pain shaped you?

How has pain shaped you? Have you let it shape you or are you bent on pushing it aside, covering it up and making like all is well. Gods word talks about how he uses pain to shape us and even to discipline us.

Hebrews 12:4-11 (ttp://www.biblegateway.com)
New International Version (NIV)
God Disciplines His Children

⁴ In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
⁶ because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”^[a]

⁷ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? ⁸ If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. ⁹ Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! ¹⁰ They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. ¹¹ No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

 

If you haven't let pain shape you than its also quite likely that you find it hard to empathise with others, to truly walk along side them in their pain.
I have experienced a few painful experiences, ones that I allowed to shape me, BUT this last one I have been slower to accept, embrace and allow God to work through. I have wallowed in pity, dragged my feet and sometimes resisted the beautiful lessons one can only learn through pain. It's one thing to go through the death of a family member and the sickness of a souse as I have, but when one comes face to face with there own morality as I have, it can be an agonising journey. While many of the emotions are similar, the journey is much more personal and the pain is difficult to escape from.

I haven't experienced Gods blessings until I truly embraced and accepted the fact that this is part of his plan. There are plenty of reasons for me to resist this, reasons for me to be upset, after all, this illness and that of my wife's threaten our dreams, growing old, seeing our children into adulthood and on and on the list goes.

I can't truly experience God through this unless I embrace it as God's loving discipline. I can't truly empathise with others pain if I can't accept my own.

When I fail to accept Gods plan for me, I fail to experience him.

A work in progress, Scott