Embrace Your Pain and Be Blessed! (Part 2)

William Gaultiere, Ph.D.
Executive Director of New Hope Crisis Counseling, Crystal Cathedral
Clinical Psychologist & Spiritual Director, ChristianSoulCare.com

I've learned that there are two polar tensions involved in the cause of pain. The first involves control. We experience pain either because of our choices or because of events that happen to us outside of our choosing. And the second polarity has to with morality in that we may suffer because of sin (ours or someone else's) or a stress that is separate from moral issues. It nets out as mapped in the table, "Four Reasons for Pain in a World Separated from God." (Of course, life doesn't always fit neatly into these four boxes so keep in mind that there may be overlap between the areas.) Four Reasons for Pain in a World Separated from God

	Events that Happen	Choices that I Make
Sins to Avoid or Redeem (Afterward)	1. Someone sins against me	2. I sin
Stresses to Accept or Choose	3. Loss or difficulty happens	4. I deny myself

1. We experience pain when someone chooses to sin against us.

A number of years ago a Christian minister who did marriage seminars around the country asked me to co-author a book with him on marriage because I was a published author and a Christian Psychologist. We discussed our ideas for the book and decided that I would write the book using material from his seminars and my counseling practice. But after I completed much of the first draft he changed his mind and decided he wanted to write the book on his own, even though we already had signed a contract together with a publisher. Of course, the publisher wouldn't let him alter the contract so he decided to pressure and guilt-trip me out of any royalties.

I felt violated. I sought support and input from my mentor and prayed about it. Then I calmly confronted the man with what he was doing and how it wasn't right. He wouldn't budge in his angry insistence that I bow out, not only of the writing, but also the royalties. I went back to my mentor and to prayer. I decided to compromise by letting him take control of the book and accepting only half of the royalties that were due to me. It hurt the way he treated me, I missed the chance to help write that book, and I lost a few thousand dollars. So I experienced pain from being sinned against.

An incest survivor, a wife of an adulterous husband, and a man who is verbally abused by his wife are obvious examples of people who are in pain from being sinned against. Many times in your life you also have experienced pain of varying degrees from someone violating you.

2. We experience pain when we choose to sin.

A few years ago I came to terms with the fact that I had been slandering a colleague of mine in some of my conversations with friends. He didn't know it, but it was still hurtful to him, to me, and even to those who listened to my criticisms. I was envious over the success of his ministry and criticizing him distracted me from dealing with my own feelings of frustration and inadequacy. Part of my problem was that he had hurt me previously. I need to work through my anger and hurt. I learned to forgive him and to pray for God to bless his work and I started focusing more on being myself and doing the ministry that God has given me to do and doing this with contentment.

The pain that we experience from own sins is harder to identify and talk about because often we don't want to admit to our responsibility and are ashamed of our sin. And as Christians we certainly don't want to make the mistake of judging and condemning other people so we tend to avoid this area. But often people suffer because of their sins or being irresponsible. The Bible teaches that we reap from what we sow (Galatians 6:7-10) and that when we sin God disciplines us, like a loving Father, to teach us and help us to grow spiritually. He may send a prick in our conscience, a rebuke from a Christian friend, or a painful hardship in our life circumstances (Hebrews 12:4-6).

Here's a few examples of people suffering painful consequences for their sins: a worker who is fired for being chronically late, a teenage girl who is punished for stealing from her mother, or a husband who suffers a divorce because to avoid conflict he went ahead and married his charming girlfriend who was abusive and unreliable.

(Continued in part 3)