Pain Isn’t Beautiful, But It Can Help You Grow

Bad things happen all the time.

This isn’t news to any of us. Life wasn’t made to be a smooth road consisting of sunshine and rainbows. Bad things happen and will continue to happen for as long as we live.

However, this isn’t to say that we just have to accept life in defeat with trials and challenges. Life is going to be painful and filled with unfortunate events that we never could have chosen, even if we could. But we could always choose otherwise. We may have no say in our painful outcomes, but we do have a say in what we do with our pain. We’re all going to deal with soul-crushing circumstances in our lives, whether that’s in the form of grieving over a loved one, dealing with a painful breakup, or finding out that our parents’ marriage isn’t working anymore. Some, more than others, go through more loss and grief in their lives than they ever deserved. Some, until this very day, are still being haunted with ghosts of what’s no longer there.

Bad things are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that you should just give in to the darkness. If anything, our struggles are just teaching us the biggest lesson on strength and resilience. If anything, God is saying, “I’m so sorry if you’re blaming me on this pain, I really am, but I’m teaching you to be strong if you could just trust me.”

There’s nothing beautiful and romantic about our pain. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but there really isn’t. But here’s the real truth—pain is the root cause of growth. If you’re going to use your pain for self-destruction, that’s a choice. If you’re going to use it to make yourself better everyday, then that’s also a choice. At the end of the day, we just have to choose wisely.