Pain has a way of slowing down time

​More than once the last few years, I've asked myself, "why am I out here?"

Why am I out here, six hours later, twenty-some miles into this race and plenty of miles and hours to go? Why am I out here putting myself through this pain again?

The answer always is - either in that moment or in the reflection after - because I KNEW that's where I'd find the pain.

When I reflected on those words below from Alexi Pappas, I realized just how true it is. Pain has a way of helping us appreciate just what a minute is in life.

When life is sailing along - don't worry be happy - it's easy to overlook just how long and just how meaningful a minute can be to a journey.

Pain seems to be time's way of saying to me - hey pal, don't overlook me. It's intimidating, really. Pain has a way of reminding me a day is a series of meaningful seconds and minutes - not one big 24-hour, easy to overlook block on a calendar.

I'm not writing this morning to issue an open invitation to a life of pain. But maybe I am recognizing in myself this power that pain has to make me more aware and more appreciative of every minute. Maybe I'm recognizing that I purposefully put myself in time slow-downs because I hate how prone I am to letting the seconds and minutes zip by me without giving them a glance.

Trust me, at the end of mile 26 - when there are 6 miles to go - time refuses to let you forget about it. And the thing is, in those moments, time always seems to tell me a more meaningful story about life.

Is it maybe pain's job to get our attention in life? Or is it maybe pain that just holds the most meaningful stories and lessons in life? Or both?

I don't know the answer to that.

I have a buddy battling throat cancer as I write this. There is clearly a lot of pain involved - for him and his sweet family. But the stories he's shared in his journey - stories of faith and hope and strength - they have been powerful.

They've delivered timely next steps to me on some days when it's been hard to see them. Because it's odd - maybe - but other people's pain can sometimes speak as clearly to me as my own.

Maybe that's the ultimate goal of pain. Maybe that's why it visits us uninvited, and why we sometimes willingly go visit it. Pain gives us the deepest and most vulnerable understanding of ourselves - and maybe it gives us our best chance of understanding the people around us.

Because our most common ground is pain. We all have it.

In a world that seems increasingly unable - and many days unwilling - to try to understand one another - that makes pain something begging to be our friend more than our enemy.

Now I don't think we have to have pain to understand one another.
​
But if I'm being honest, I don't think we're often very good at it without pain.

I know I'm not.

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