Why do we go through hard times?  Why do we suffer? My grandmother’s answer to this is “sometimes it takes a broken vessel for the light of God to shine through”.  As a child I had no understanding of what this meant.  When I tackled this question as a teen, I viewed this statement with great cynicism.  I often thought “why would God purposely hurt someone just so he could shine, that’s not right”.  However, as an adult, I have developed a whole new interpretation and appreciation for this statement. My grandmother, who is a Southern Baptist from Arkansas, basically described the nature of our existence.  When you really think about it, our universe (that God created or IS God depending on who you ask) is self-correcting.  When we have a cut or bruise, our bodies heal them.  When you look at ecosystems, there is a perfect balance of predators and prey to prevent overpopulation or under-population of a particular species. If left undisturbed, this natural harmony would continue. However, man often tampers with the universe’s natural balance, therefore throwing it into disharmony.  What I’m trying to get at is that the Universe we live in strives for perfection, and if left undisturbed balances itself out! What does this mean in our lives?

Imagine putting your hand in scalding hot water (not a pleasant thought..lol). Your hand probably wouldn’t be in there long because the PAIN would cause you to remove your hand from the water rather quickly.  Pain and suffering is a sign that something is going wrong. Its life’s way of letting us know that we are in disharmony and that we need to change what we are doing. It’s the way the life makes us better individuals!

The problem with man is that God gave us free will.  An animal is a slave to its impulses and reflexes, so if they conduct in a behavior that causes them pain they will cease that behavior.  However, man has the ability to ignore life’s warning system.  Even with the scalding hot water example, if someone trained himself or herself mentally to ignore the pain, they could supercede their natural reflex to remove their hand from the water (resulting in a pretty nasty burn).

As stated earlier, pain is the warning system that lets us know we are doing something wrong. It is designed to push us to perfection.  For example, lets say John is a terrible money manager.  As a result of his poor money management, John has a bad credit score, bills that are behind, and maybe even disconnection notices!  Obviously, these consequences will cause a lot of mental pain.   This pain is a sign to John that he is in disharmony, that he is doing something totally wrong!  If John took heed to this warning system, he might change his behavior and take actions that would result in a more positive outcome.  Negative consequences aren’t necessarily meant for punishment, but rather as a warning sign that we’re doing something wrong in our life.  In John’s case, this pain was supposed to cause him to look at how he handles his money and make steps to improve this skill. This improvement would lead to John becoming a stronger person, because his weakness would inevitably become a strength as a result of his self-corrective behavior.  However, just like the man who trains himself to ignore the pain of the scalding water, John is ignoring these signs.  Unfortunately for John, life will continue to try to correct John’s behavior by possibly having him get garnished, go bankrupt, or maybe even having him become homeless.

Another example is of a woman who constantly chooses the wrong men due to low self-esteem.   Until she begins to love herself, she will constantly run into men who don’t respect her, cheat on her, call her names, or maybe even hit her.   And when she leaves one guy, she’ll run into another guy who’s just like him or worse until she learns to love herself.  Many people in this circumstance view themselves as victims; however, what really is going on is that life is trying to make her a better person.  These negative events are warning signs that she is doing something wrong. Once she learns to love herself, she will become a better person and this will bring her closer to perfection.  However, until she heeds this warning system, her situation will get progressively worse.

In my life personally, I see how this warning system has worked.  I had a BAD habit of procrastinating.  I would often pay bills late, wait until the last minute to finish projects and work, and would often push back deadlines. Due to this tendency to procrastinate, I even missed out on an opportunity to have my WHOLE graduate school education paid for because I procrastinated on turning in paper work for a scholarship (I ended up having to get over $50k in loans).  First the warnings were subtle, a ticket here (for procrastinating on getting registration), a late fee there.  But the warnings eventually got louder until I could no longer ignore them.  It took me wasting thousands of dollars (in fines, judgments, and lost scholarship money) before I finally realized I had to tackle this issue.   Since I have conquered my tendency to procrastinate, my life has made a huge change for the better.   And though there are a few remnants from my procrastination days I have to clear up, I take joy in knowing that these things will eventually fade away as I continue to heed nature’s warning system.

Now I understand why my grandmother says that “sometimes it takes a broken vessel for the light of God to shine through”.  Have you ever noticed that some of the most devoted Christians, Muslims, etc. are ex drug addicts, felons, or alcoholics?  The reason for this is that these are people who fell so deep into despair that they submitted to the this warning system (the Will of God, the Flow of the Tao, Submitting to Allah).  They learned the importance of heeding these signs, and developed strong faith in the process.
Will you heed this warning system, or will you continue to view yourself as a victim when negative consequences arise? Will you take a closer look at what pain and suffering in your life is really telling you, or will you view yourself as unlucky.  God gave us free will to decide which road we want to take. But if you’re really interested in growing as an individual, look at pain and suffering as God or the Universe pushing you toward perfection!