does pain have a purpose?
and what is a purpose, anyway?
and what could be a purpose by which we’d understand our pain?
purpose: the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. or, to have as one’s intention or objective.
a purpose for our pain, this kind of purpose… it assumes a reason. a reason for our pain, means there’s an intention, or objective, behind our pain. assuming that there’s a reason for our pain — in this way — that there’s a reason for these things outside of our control, assumes an orchestrator behind the scenes. a grand puppet-master pulling your puppet-strings to make you dance across the earth. barefoot. over glass. while everything is on fire. and children are starving. and fleeing their countries by boat and drowning. and that asshole from high-school who ghosted you is living their best life even though they literally assaulted people. but thank god for the puppet-master, right?
and maybe there is a universe in control of everything. maybe there are things that are always going to happen. maybe everything does happen for a reason.
but i spent too long in a cult-church to buy into all of that, that easily.
i’ve been thinking a lot about pain, recently. thanks therapy am i right? i’ve been reading books on mindfulness, and buddhist teachings. i’ve been examining their views on suffering and pain. and naturally, i’ve been thinking a lot about how my worldview on pain has shifted.
i heard from the pulpit every damn week that god had a purpose for everything. everything. and if we didn’t understand it, it’s because gods ways are higher than our ways. it’s beyond our understanding. but we trust the bible. blindly. even though we don’t understand. even though we can’t see the purpose in everything. because we have faith. and that faith is enough to cover a multitude of blindspots. i think the actual verse for that is that faith is enough to cover a multitude of sins, but i like my version better.
i started in that cult-church a fourteen year-old child who grew up in a chaotic home. i heard that god had a reason for everything, for the pain i’d experienced and the pain i was feeling. and i lapped it up like candy on christmas. like that delicious english cadbury chocolate that actually melts properly because australian cadbury is made to withstand real heat… you know what i’m talking about, sweet tooth friends. i heard that i could be healed from my past, no strings attached, no work to be done, and i ran to that altar time and time again, hands raised and heart abandoned. i was ready for the pain to leave. i wanted them to take it away. i wanted god to fix it. especially if it was because of god that it happened in the first place, right? i wanted to understand the reason for it, but for the time being, i was happy to have faith. i was happy enough to allow my faith to cover the blindspot in our theology. i was happy for me being in that building to be reason enough for the pain to have existed. perhaps i needed to know that pain to know the joy of the lord? i’m sure i heard that preached more than once.
the thing with pentecostalism is that they really, really, really, fucking hate, feeling their feelings. they really really don’t like being stuck in their humanness. they like that they can transcend it. they like that they are part of this “in-club” with god that means they know something the rest of the world doesn’t.
so they hate pain. and they hate when they can’t understand it. but they will always preach that god understands it. apparently. so even if they don’t… god does. and since they’re in the in-club with god, that should be good enough for everyone. god ways are higher, after all, and god has a reason for everything. just trust.
i don’t believe there is a purpose for our pain, anymore.
i’m not even sure i ever really did. it was too much of a stretch. even for this lil culty-hype-gal. i don’t believe that our suffering, the things that happen to us outside of our control, the things that hurt us outside of ourselves, are orchestrated by a grand puppet-master. a magical man in the sky who has us walking over glass for fun because it’s the purpose of god and who are we to question it?
and while we’re at it… i don’t believe in the story of Job — the testing of a man who had done nothing but love and serve his god. i don’t believe it’s a model we need to live by anymore. i don’t know that it was ever meant to be. i don’t see it as inspiring, like we were taught to see it. i see it as spiteful. vindictive. testing for the sake of testing, like some evil professor throwing exams that aren’t graded on his students. no thanks, i’d drop out of that degree.
no, i really don’t believe there’s a purpose for our pain.
but i do believe we can forge purpose out of our pain.
i don’t believe there’s purpose there to begin with. a purpose bigger than ourselves. as with anything in our life, i don’t believe it’s orchestrated.
i believe we get to orchestrate it.
i believe we get to orchestrate our lives. our selves.
and that’s even more fucking magic.
when i look at my pain now, i don’t see something i have to cover over. i don’t see a mystery i need to hide and cover up because it’s too hard to explain, too hard to justify while also justifying the presence of a god in my life. i don’t see myself as a Job, tested for no reason but the pleasure of a god. i just see myself. i just see the pain as it is. it exists. it is there. at times my own causing, at times coming from outside of myself. but i see it. i don’t cover over it. i accept it. i move through it. i am moving through it.
i see pain and i see life. i see human beings forged. cultures born. stories to tell. i see bodies learning wisdom. people seeking change. i see the ways that we can take that pain, heal it, and use it. i see the ways we can shape purpose ourselves from our pain. and i see the pain as a pathway to myself.
instead of asking the purpose of our pain, maybe it’s worth asking what it can tell us. about who we are. about where we are going. about where we’ve been.