If there was another way, we would choose it. Pain gets our attention, it causes us to focus.  It gets difficult to bear so we look for a way out.  We will do anything to get rid of it.  We seek to change our circumstances:   a new job, a new house, a new spouse. If these circumstances were different, then maybe we would be pain free, maybe we would have peace in the absence of the present pain.

The problem is the pain follows us.  It follows us into the next job, the next house, the next spouse.  So we try to numb it; we get busy, really busy.  We hurry and rush, so we don’t have to stop and feel… feel all that pain.

We stuff it in our backpacks, only to carry the heavy load for a few more years. Then yet again we will be forced to unpack it and try to figure out what to do with it.

This path of brokenness places us so close to getting the thing that we need. The very thing that God is trying to work into our character is through brokenness. In refusing to face the pain, we just keep going; going our own way.

Proverbs 27:12

“The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.”