thoughts on my dog and pain

My wife and I are proud owners of a five year old pit bull named Ava. She is a nut. She spent this past winter recovering from surgery to repair an ACL which she probably tore jumping to peek over our 6 foot fence. It's actually quite a site, she can literally get head and shoulders above the fence from standing still. I'm positive she could get over it if she really wanted to but, I'm pretty certain she is content within the safety of the backyard. Don't let the media hype fool you, not all pit bulls are monsters.

So last week sometime she broke a nail (insert joke here), not chipped or cracked, but really broke. The nail basically peeled like a banana around the quick. I didn't notice how bad it was until yesterday because she has such a high tolerance for pain, the way she was tearing around the yard and such would never give anyone the reason to believe something was wrong, especially with something that is as integral a part of running or walking as a foot is.

Seeing the need to have the nail attended to, I took her to the vet. She hates having anyone touch her feet under normal conditions, so the fact that she was injured didn't bode well for the technicians. They took her out back, muzzled her, and it took four of them to accomplish the task at hand. There were probably four or five other patients waiting to be seen, and as Ava's screams and cries filled the waiting area, I imagined the dentist office where the little kid is in hysterics in the chair and all the other kids in the waiting room can hear his blood-curdling cries and they start to panic and cling to their mothers. It was wild.

After what seemed like an hour the tech brought Ava back out. She was fine, bright red bandage and all. Like I had mentioned earlier, I hadn't noticed her nail, because she didn't let on like anything was wrong right away. It wasn't til Monday that I noticed a problem. She was moping around, favoring her paw, just generally being a grump. But believe me when I tell you that all the pain she experienced in that back room was well worth it on the other side. She walked out of that vets office like nothing had ever happened. She was back to her old self again, save the bright red bandage.

And it got me thinking about pain and the rewards it brings. People think about pain as a bad thing, people think about pain as something that is never beneficial, that it's something to avoid at all costs, or...and this is the biggie...if God is truly a God of love why is there pain and suffering in this world.

I think the answer is very simple...the suffering, the trials, the tribulation that we all experience in life serve a purpose. Oh, we might not always see that purpose in the midst of the pain, there is even a chance we may never understand why we experienced something in the first place. It may not necessarily be for our benefit, and that can be a tough sell for some. But like Ava and her broken nail, as the technicians held her down to strip away the broken pieces, which led to more excruciating pain, there was relief on the other side. She was subjected to horrible pain, that she undoubtedly did not understand, that led to a greater good. Like the technicians performing the procedure, God knows the benefits that the current pain will bear in time.

Don't look at trials and struggles, sickness and pain, as punishment or the universe balancing out, or whatever ridiculous new-age garbage is floating around, look at it for what it truly is; an opportunity to allow the Lord to draw you closer to Him. The Lord utilizes the pain to strengthen our faith. We all really only have a couple of options when it comes to pain. We can either shrivel up and die, or we can get closer to the Lord who loves us and gave His life for us. As born-again followers of Christ our thoughts and views on the goings-on of this life should always be with eternity in mind. Like Jesus said through Paul in Romans-"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

Just like Ava and the broken nail, even though we may not understand why, rest assured that it will all be worth it.

Thanks for reading.
Love in Christ,
Chris