Saturday, November 27, 2010

A Little Necessary Pain


Be glad you can’t see me right now. I’m looking very ugly. For the past week I’ve been putting a cream on my face which turns bright red wherever there are cancerous places on my skin. The red spots are along the sides of my nose, on my lower lip and cover all of my chin. The red spots have now blistered making scabs appear and every time I smile or talk or try to eat the scabs crack. It hurts!

But this is necessary pain and I have to keep thinking about what a miracle modern medicine is. My great-grandmother died from skin cancer and all this pain and ugliness is healing me, helping me escape dire consequences in the future.

This is necessary pain. It is healing me. This is good. This is necessary pain. It is healing me. This is good. (I’m trying to keep the mental chatter positive!)

But besides mental chatter, I’ve been thinking about how the repentance process is like this. Sometimes we have to go through some ugly humiliation in order to humble ourselves and repent. And there is usually pain when we try to change and grow. But necessary pain is also part of the process. Much as we don’t like it, some pain is necessary. And in order to endure it we have to keep our thoughts centered on the beauty that will come with the healing.

I’m imagining that. It will be good. But right now my face is pretty scary. That's the nature of necessary pain.

2 comments:

Wendi said...

That sounds like it hurts! I hope your face heals and feels better soon! :)

Anonymous said...

It is wonderful what they can do now to make our lives better and even save them. But sometimes that treatment really is harder than the problem. Some of the treatments are not for wimps, they are tough, but you are worth it, and I am praying that you will have a speedy recovery, and hopefully, a lot less pain. I bet by Christmas you're your beautiful self again.