Pain is unavoidable. Trust me on this one, I’ve tried to avoid it for many years and in some instances I’ve come close to succeeding but somehow it finds me. I’m sitting here now trying to figure out the reason or the purpose for pain. Why is it necessary for human beings to experience pain?
Physically speaking, the experts say that pain is necessary to alert us that something is wrong. How else would you know you were having a heart attack if you didn’t have the pain in your chest? How would you know that you needed a cavity filled unless you felt the pain in your mouth? How would you know that you slammed your finger in the car door if ... well you know what I'm saying. Pain, apparently, is necessary.
I think about this concept now and I’m taken back sixteen years to when I was in labor with my son. I remember the nurse telling me, “You don’t have to be in pain.” Clearly, she had never read Genesis 3:16. She wanted to make me more comfortable. She offered up the drugs and I valiantly refused them. Not because I was trying to be strong or anything … it just wasn’t that bad. That delivery was by no means painless but it was bearable. So much so that I decided to get pregnant again four years later. The pain ripped me in half the second time around. That’s what I get for being so daggone valiant.
Necessary?
Does emotional pain serve the same purpose? To alert us that something is wrong? Or is there a different purpose for it. I haven’t figured that out yet. Why in so many situations does pain accompany love? I thought that love wasn’t supposed to hurt but in so many instances it does.
Now, I am not going to bore with you with the details of the many instances of how love has let me down. Suffice it say … I’ve been let down and I've let people down. And it is because of these experiences that I’ve decided to steer clear of the love-pain connection. After all, we choose to love who we love. A lot of folk don’t believe that but we actually do make a decision to love who we love. It may be in the heat of passion and there may be alcohol involved but we still decide. Normally, the pain follows when that love is not reciprocated. When we give more than we get.
Have you ever felt that you loved someone more than they loved you? Not because they don’t meet our expectations or aren’t doing what we want. I mean when someone you love deliberately does something to hurt you and you are taken aback because hurting them has never even crossed your mind.
Check this out:
I see love as a gift to give
Not to receive
No longer is love an object to gain
But something to give away
The more I gave
The better I felt
Because
Now I have
The capacity to love
This is an excerpt from a poem entitled Capacity to Love and it’s included in my second book, Confessions of a Beautiful Woman. When I wrote that I meant it. I meant it with everything that was in me. I won’t go into the details but baby I was wide open. Wrong place, wrong time.
The truth is love should be something that is freely given without any expectations. However, I believe that continuous giving without a hint of reciprocity will wear on even the most loving person.
I’ve learned to ration out the love that I give in order to prevent the hurt. It may be working. I may have prevented some pain but I may have also missed out on some good things because I was afraid to love. **shrugs** Small sacrifice. I build my walls and keep everyone at a certain distance.
But how do you keep your family at a distance?
I can’t ration out love to the people that share my bloodline.
That love is strong and it is unconditional.
It’s also the most painful.
Necessary?
What is meant to be will be
