Notes from the road: seeing beauty amidst the pain

july pain lisa

I don’t like pain.

Who does really?

The spring was unusually busy for me this year, so as I rode with my husband recently, I was still working up to a decent number of miles. This only being my third ride of the year, the 34 miles wasn’t too shabby. But about half way through at the 17 mile mark, I started to hurt.

  • My neck hurt
  • My shoulders hurt
  • My hips hurt

Misery became my friend as I pedaled furiously to keep up with my endurance focused husband. Ugh!! I became very fixated on the task at hand, and through it, all I could think of was how miserable I was.  Sometimes if you push through the pain you reach a point where it gets easier.  Your muscles catch up with your accelerated heart rate, and your body pushes into endurance mode.

Not so much today

All I could see was the pain. I determined to try to get through it; to reach the goal set. What was my choice?  There wasn’t any turning back.  Our car was 17 miles behind me, and the only way back to it was on this instrument of my torture. My determination kept my mind centered on the misery, and as the minutes ticked by, it became deep and pronounced.

Then something happened

A chipmunk darted out in front of my wheel causing me to divert my focus. A little swerve, a mental forehead swipe, and my mind was drawn to the path around me. Then God began to show me what I had been missing.

Birds singing

Bunnies playing

Flowers blooming

Farmer’s fields planted and growing, hill after hill of wildflowers turning their faces to the sun.

The grandeur of the creation around me, of the world surrounding the path I was traveling, had all but escaped my notice because I was too focused on the pain that I was experiencing.

How often do we let that happen in our lives?

Pain enters, and we become so focused on it that we cannot see the beauty that surrounds us, the beauty hidden in the situation, or the beauty that will come from the pain.

What? Beauty from pain? Really?

Yes!

Sometimes we have been brought to a certain place to show us the things we are missing. Granted it is difficult to see past the extreme difficulties we are in the midst of…

But GOD.

God wants us to see what was there all the time - the beauty amidst the pain. When we can see what He wants us to see, we begin to take our focus off of our situation, and praise for the beautiful can then take place.

and He is the beautiful. He will never leave us, or forsake us. …even in the brutally ugly places of our lives.

May we never lose that wonder, the wonder of who God is in the world; the creator of all, our refuge, our King.

And when the hard times come?

Shift your focus towards Him like a flower turning its face to the sun - and praise Him evermore.

What difficult places has God brought you through? How has He shifted your focus back towards Him? Consider leaving a comment.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Lisa

2 responses to “Notes from the road: seeing beauty amidst the pain

  1. “Sometimes we have been brought to certain place to show us the things we are missing”. This really resonated with me. Though the worst days of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome made me pine for my former strength, the forced slowing down grew ny relationship with Jesus more than any other time in my life and many of my best poems came out of that time. I learnt to listen to God’s still voice and appreciate things in nature that I had never noticed before.

    Like

  2. es, those times can be tough to bear, but we are so blessed to have Jesus at our sides through it all! I’m glad that you can see the beauty in it all! Be blessed Merryn!

    Like

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