The Gift of Pain

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that guards your understanding. Just as the hard stone of a fruit must crack open so its heart can bask in the sunlight, so too must you endure pain to grow. If you could keep your heart open to the daily wonders of life, your pain would appear as wondrous as your joy, and you would embrace the changing seasons of your heart, just as you welcome the seasons that pass over your fields. You would watch with calm through the winters of your sorrow.

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter medicine through which the healer within you cures your troubled self. So trust this inner physician; drink the remedy quietly and calmly. Though his hand may feel heavy, it is gently guided by the unseen. The cup he offers you, though it burns your lips, is molded from the clay softened by his own sacred tears.