This is a guest post from one of my dearest friends, Ajin Abraham who is very much sensitive to the topic of pain and suffering in Christian life. I pray that you find this post encouraging and also ministering personally to you! You can follow her on her blog Expressions or on twitter @Ajin_Abraham. If you are going through problems in your personal life and feel the need for counselling, you may contact any of us. We will be glad to help you find Life!

Pain is real. No amount of positive thinking or self-helping takes it away. It just hurts when it hurts.

Maybe you feel like lately your life has been a series of disappointments. You just crash and tumble into each day, not knowing what the length of the day holds and never entirely sure if the season will pass.

As I’m discovering on my learning curve – that’s just the way life is. Not always fair. Marred with hurt, sorrow, tragedy, pain and disappointment. Bad things happen to good people. Good things don’t always necessarily happen to good people.

Modern versions of faith propagate a happy, smiley-faced picture of relentless satisfaction, purported to be achieved by claiming God’s promises; and put-down all suffering as a lack in the display of faith.

Newsflash: God simply hasn’t promised blue skies and rosy pathways all through our lives. I’ll be the first to admit how gut-wrenching it feels to trudge through a day when the burden you’re carrying seems too heavy to bear. It seems senseless, meaningless and plain painful.

Suddenly, all the cheery promises in God’s word seem to be just that – cheery promises. And God couldn’t seem any further away..

But moments like these, make you realize that the most important ‘things’ in life are not ‘things’. They refine you and you are forced to consider whether you will choose the giver even when all the gifts are gone. And when the chaff is blown away, the wheat remains.

I find infinite and inexpressible consolation, just as the poet who sings

“God has promised Strength for the day,

Rest for the labor,

Light for the way.

Grace for the trials,

Help from above.

Unfailing Sympathy.

Undying Love”.

Life, when I remove my rose-tinted glasses, I see for what it is. A vast expanse of sorrow, only interspersed by happiness. Happiness, by the way, is not the same as joy. Happiness is circumstantial. Joy is a choice – flowing from the one true fountain.

No ‘one-size-fits-all’ tip on pain management is offered – not by the servants of the ages past and not by the God they served. In living one day at a time. In counting on nothing and on no one but grace. In building your hope only on righteousness. In leaning wholly on Jesus’ name. Know this – Joy will come in the morning.