Pain is an inevitable part of life and growth; a beneficial part! Stop and consider some of its benefits: 1) It lets you know when there’s something wrong in your body that needs to be made right. 2) It forces you to acknowledge a condition you didn’t know about; one that could potentially claim your life. 3) It makes you rearrange your priorities and your schedule and seek help. 4) It makes you willing to submit to treatment you may not enjoy, believing that it will make you whole. Are you getting the idea? Strange as it may seem, the more you dread and resist the pain, the more you increase the effect it has on you. What we resist persists, and the more pain is resisted, the stronger it becomes. When a pregnant woman goes into labour, the advice she generally gets from her medical team is to ‘relax’. They know the more she fights the pain, the stronger it will become and the longer the delivery process will take. So when you are experiencing pain, don’t fight it. Walk through it and allow it to accomplish its purpose. The Bible says: ‘When troubles…come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know…when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing’ (James 1:2-4 NLT). So the word for today is – learn to endure this season of pain, knowing that God has promised you joy on the other side of it!