Vachon Imagined

When my son was just an infant, I would bargain with my husband to take him to the pediatrician whenever it was time for shots.

I could already imagine the pain.

His circumcision had left an impression on me—not the procedure itself, but the discomfort his tiny body experienced afterward. Seeing your child in pain does something to you. It awakens a helplessness most parents would gladly trade away.

So I made a deal.

I would do the laundry if he would handle the torture.

And voila.

I won.

Go me.

Pain is something most of us find intolerable.

Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, heartbreak, rejection, humiliation, or the sound of fingernails scraping across a chalkboard, there is something in us that immediately recoils.

Ugh.

Not that.

Anything but that.

But pain itself is not really the problem.

Pain is pain.

No one can withstand an endless amount of it.

Just ask my turncoat ancestor who switched sides during the Civil War after repeatedly getting his backside handed to him by Yankees. A devastating betrayal to our Southern roots, perhaps, but an understandable one.

Pain has a way of changing our convictions.

From an ego perspective, avoiding pain makes perfect sense.

Protect the body.

Protect the reputation.

Protect the image.

Protect the story you tell yourself about who you are.

All reasonable goals.

But what has always fascinated me is this:

Why spend so much of your life running from something that is guaranteed to find you anyway?

No one escapes embarrassment.

No one escapes grief.

No one escapes failure.

No one escapes loss.

And eventually, no one escapes death.

The very things we spend our lives trying to avoid are woven into the experience of being alive.

The brave understand this.

Courage is not the absence of pain.

It is the willingness to meet pain when it arrives.

The courageous apologize when their pride begs them not to.

They risk rejection in order to love.

They tell the truth when a lie would be easier.

They walk into difficult conversations knowing they may leave wounded.

Not because they enjoy suffering.

Because some things are worth more than comfort.

The peaceful avoid war whenever possible, not because they are weak, but because they understand the cost of conflict.

They know every battle leaves scars.

They know every victory comes with a price.

And so they seek peace not out of fear, but out of wisdom.

To preserve what matters.

To keep the way.

To keep the truth.

To keep the life.

Pain will come regardless.

The question is not whether we will suffer.

The question is whether we will spend our lives running from pain or allow pain to teach us something about courage, humility, and love.

Because in the end, it is often the very thing we wished to avoid that teaches us how to live.