What pain does to you

"For he has, in the last resort, nothing to give us but himself." - C.S. Lewis

"God is all I want.  Jesus is truly all I have.  I have nothing but Him.  I have nothing but Him.  And I want nothing but Him.  He is everything.  He is all I have.  He is all I want.  In the end, there is only Him.  In the beginning, there is only Him.  In the present, there is only Him.  God is my marvelous Everything." - Excerpt from my journal, November 2010, on one of the most physically painful days I have ever lived through. 

"Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God." - 1 Peter 4:1-2

“Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. … You are already naked.” - Steve Jobs

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Pain gives you clarity.
I don't want to have pain anymore, and even this past month, knowing full well it might have been my last month of pain, I still tried a new painkiller to avoid the inevitable (didn't work). 
But pain is so cleansing.
I don't want pain.
But it's so sight-giving.

I want to live a life free of pain because pain is a hindrance.  It's a hindrance to ministry.  It's a hindrance to socializing. Sometimes it's even a hindrance to staying awake (even in the pain-free moments you suffer a lot of fatigue from having been in pain).  

Yet I would never trade the insights God has brought to me through the pain.  That excerpt from my journal...what a defining moment that was!  I'll never forget it for as long or as short as I live: the moment I truly, wholly understood that Jesus gives me Himself and nothing less.  Nothing is lacking in my life, because I have nothing.  The Lord took everything from me: health, financial stability, independence (that one hurt), my photographic memory (gone! that one hurt too).  He stripped me of all I thought I owned, all I thought was mine, so that I could understand that He is the only thing that really belongs to me.  I am my Beloved's and He is mine.  I will die.  Not even this body that I think so much and so little of is mine.  I don't own it, don't possess it - it will be taken away from me someday. 

But I have everything because I have Jesus.  And Jesus is all I have. 

So I look forward to being pain-free.  But, ah, Lord, let me keep the clarity!