I don’t know about you, but when I first heard the phrase “Recycling Pain,” I thought to myself that pain is that last thing I’d ever want to recycle. I think people normally feel that way. If you’ve experienced something that hurt, you want to avoid, bury, or drown out anything that reminds you of that hurt. So I was surprised to find that in recovery circles the last of the healing choices is called “Recycling Pain.” Actually it’s not a new concept; it’s just a new way of naming or thinking about hard things. The Bible says it this way, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Cor.1:3-4
I’ve known these verses all my life and when we lost our daughter, Joanna, and then our son, Jeremy, I knew that probably at some time I would have the “opportunity” to comfort someone who had lost a child with the comfort I had received from God and others. I didn’t really think of this as God using my pain to give me a ministry to others, but that’s what it has become. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with grieving parents and the opportunity to share with them the comfort that I have received from my Heavenly Father. Had I not actually gone through the loss of my children, I would not have had the right to speak about God’s comfort in this circumstance. Now I need you to understand that I never go looking for hard things to happen in my life so I can have a new ministry. I was an unusual kid in that I wanted to learn from other peoples mistakes so I could avoid pain. But I’ve learned that in this life you can’t avoid pain and trouble, so my new goal is to cooperate with God to see how much good can come out of my pain.
One final thing I’ve learned about recycling pain is that the people you share with get hope because of your example and in the sharing you get healing because that’s how God made us. The worst thing about pain and loss is to feel that it’s pointless. Recycling pain gives God the opportunity to redeem even your most difficult experiences.
Jan