Pain.

I believe that pain distorts us. It distorts our perspective, our ability to see good and to feel okay. It makes everything seem longer. Everything seem harder. Getting out of bed, staying asleep, work, play, enjoying each day. It muffles our desires, motivations and goals. It stomps on our patience and enhances our selfish ways of thinking. It brings out the worst in life and it brings out the worst in ourselves. Pain is hard. It's one of the greatest challenges of life. Physical pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain, mental pain. Pain is really the underlying experience of most negative things we experience. Anger, frustration, loneliness, rejection, sickness, failure, embarrassment, fear, loss, sadness. They all hurt. They all cause pain. Pain in our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our families, our communities, our country, our world. Pain is everywhere. It affects everyone. It stretches and pushes and pulls. It never gives up. It never gives in.

And yet, pain is a driving force of good. A force to change, to hold on, to work harder. To be more accepting, more humble, more kind. To step in another's shoes before passing judgement. To see the good when life just seems so bad. To find the good deep within ourselves. The strength, the endurance, the courage we never knew we had. It opens our eyes to the surrounding world. To the power within our own selves and the goodness in people around us.

Pain will always distort us. Our perspectives, our abilities, our feelings. But pain will also shape us. We reach deeper and try harder in order to survive. Through that reaching and trying a new person comes to existince. A stronger, better, kinder version of the person we once were. With greater potential, greater purpose and greater power than before. It shapes our way of thinking, our way of life, our way of being. Our ability to see, to feel, to understand. It changes who we are from the inside out or the outside in. And if we can hang on, a beautiful shape will grow from that dark, ugly distortion.