Why would you thank God for pain?

My family has been listening to a deeply theological and winsome song all year that goes like this:

I don’t want to act too high and mighty
Cause tomorrow I may fall down on my face.
Lord I thank you for sunshine, Thank you for rain,
Thank you for joy, Thank you for pain,
It’s a beautiful day, it’s a beautiful day.

written by Jermaine Edwards and sung by 10-year-old Rushawn Ewears

This week, while leading a retreat, I reached out for my baby and missed a step and sprained my ankle. I screamed loudly and fell over backwards, feeling like I would faint from the pain. I wondered, how in the world will I take care of a one-year-old with a sprained ankle? Immediately I felt a hand hold my head and another hand grab my hand tightly. My husband and good friend, Lisa, coached me through the anxiety, assuring me I could still parent well. The hosts of our retreat said their daughter was coming over in twenty minutes who happened to be a nurse. She told me exactly what to do and within thirty minutes I had x-rays taken and was out the door walking. My friends heard what happened and mailed a generous gift to my house of things they knew I needed for my daughter and wouldn't have energy to buy.

In that whole experience, I felt pain and joy simultaneously. I felt loved.

I've been thinking about why you would ever thank God for pain. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances." In the case of my sprained ankle, it was easy to give thanks. Love was all around me. Other times, pain is much more severe and lonely and there seems no appropriate response other than lament. This, too, is Biblical.

But I am thankful for pain in another way, beyond the ways it allows me to experience love and kindness from others. Pain, is a feeling wired into my body as a healthy response to anything threatening its health. I've had prayer ministers tell me to curse pain, saying it is not from God and so we should cast it out. But I don't think that way anymore. I'm learning to befriend the pain in my body and to recognize it as a sign of healthy communication. I can curse the thing causing my pain, but I don't want to curse the pain itself. Fibromyalgia makes this tricky, because it is a disorder associated with pain signals that do not know how to turn off. I've learned to engage my pain like I would a toddler having a temper tantrum, rather than as a an enemy. A loving embrace and acknowledgment is far more affective than yelling or ignoring. I can say to my body, thank you for communicating with me. I've heard you and I'm grateful for the alert.

There's still another way that I am thankful for pain, a broader way. Both joy and pain are a part of life, and I think that's what this song is trying to capture. As Jesus forms us into his image and strengthens us through community, we experience life to be beautiful and this gives us reason to give thanks.

What are you thankful for this week? What have you experienced to be beautiful?