Joy in Pain, Part 1

In my early twenties, Joel and I lived in Kansas City, MO.  We attended a wonderful church where we met wonderful friends who became family.  During that time, we worked with the youth group. I met weekly with the teenage girls in one of their homes.  Since this was not my college degree, I was trying to find ways to minister to them on my own.

I found a devotional built around perseverance.  I filled a large glass bowl with marbles and poured ice water over them.  I then offered a reward to the girl that could get the most marbles out of the bowl using her toes.  We always had a good laugh together so it was fun seeing them wince in pain and barely be able to get more than 2 or 3 marbles out before they gave up and wrapped their foot up in a towel to get warm.  However, there was one girl who was determined. She quickly surpassed all the other girls in the number of marbles she retrieved but she didn’t stop with just being the winner. She continued to pull out one marble after another.  We started squealing in pain for her. We could see her foot turning purple and all I could think about was how mad her mom would be at me when she found out that I caused her to have nerve damage from hypothermia. I began to beg her to stop.  Her foot was turning blue and her fingers were bent at weird angles because of the stress she was under. But she wouldn’t stop until every last marble was out of the bowl.

I intended this to be a lesson that showed them how to endure the troubles of this world.  When most of them bowed out quickly, I felt bad for calling them out for not trying harder. And then I looked at the one who persevered.  She was sitting there with a heating pad wrapped around her shriveled foot and had the most brilliant smile plastered across her face. She felt a sense of achievement.  She had persevered.

Is this joy in pain?  Forcing yourself to endure the suffering so that you can continue to grow into who God created you to be? Is joy seeing the end result while still in the middle of the refining process? Can you have joy in the middle of pain?

She was not smiling while her foot lost feeling in the icy cold water.  Her face was contorted in pain with shrieks of agony coming out of her mouth.  Yet every time she successfully pulled a marble out of the water, she let out a sigh of relief – one more obstacle out of the way, one step closer to the finish line.  And when that final marble was pulled out and she was able to wrap her foot in warmth, she felt satisfied. Her work was complete. She had “done good”.

That is how we will feel when this life is over.  Every obstacle that we get past, remembering the reward that lies ahead of us, moves us into a state of completion.  That is where we find joy in pain.