Disclaimer: As always with these sorts of posts, I will never condone abuse of any sort. When I speak of pain, I do not mean from abuse from another person. If you are experiencing abuse, it is always my goal to help you seek asylum and find a way to freedom.
I will be the first to admit I don’t like any form of pain or discomfort. As bad as physical pain is, though, I think I would choose it over emotional.
It all started back when I was in elementary school, and continued from elementary into the transition into high school (we had two schools: K–6 and 7–12). I’ve spoken to one of the girls involved about what went down during that time and forgiveness has happened. I’ve spoken to the other girl, but only in passing—mostly after a moment of shock when I saw her unexpectedly out and about. Forgiveness has occurred on my end, but we never spoke about it.
I don’t need to go into any details here, but suffice it to say that I learned early on that trust is easily broken and almost impossible to mend. (I’ve gotten better at it in my 30s, but I can’t say I’m amazing at it even now. It’s still difficult for me to give the initial trust at times.)
In the second incident of my trust being broken, it was actually an entire friendship broken and ground into the dirt, and as a sensitive brand-new seventh grader, I cried. And she laughed.
I decided in that moment that no one, absolutely no one would ever make or even see me cry again. I didn’t know how I was going to make it happen, but I was determined.
The first step was easy. Make no friends. Become closed off to everyone around me. I was already a bit on the shy side, going from a class of 10 to a class of 118, so that was simple. The second step was a bit more difficult. I was an easy crier and came from a line of easy criers (ask my Grams, she’ll show—I mean tell you. 😉 Love you, Grams!).
Thankfully, the tools to my success were in my basement. There were a bunch of regency-era romance novels that my mom had gotten from people over the years and they had been boxed up and left on the floor of the basement. The ones on the bottom got water damage, but the ones on the top—though smelly—were in good shape for reading. Now, let me tell you, most of the stuff in those books went WAYYYYYYY over my head (I was a late bloomer). Mom didn’t read those books, so I doubted I was allowed to read them, but they were there and I had read one (non-romantic) regency-era novel before that mentioned what I needed, so I knew these were the books I needed and I read them anyway (sorry, Mom! My secret’s out now, more than 20 years later!). And I got exactly what I was looking for.
Many of the women who were part of the rich crowd and going through the season to try and find a husband always wore a “mask.” Not a literal mask, but a facade; a blank face that gave nothing away. Or, rather, a persistent smile, an almost-smirk, that kept people (men) guessing as to what might actually be going through their minds. The real goal was to never let anyone know what they were thinking—never let them see your nerves, never let them see your interest, never let them see anything—because the moment anyone knew the truth, they would swarm like vultures.
So I began cultivating my mask. Oh, it was hard work. What the stories didn’t tell you is that the emotions eventually had to come out. And come out they did every night as I cried myself to sleep. But no one in high school or college had the power to hurt me anymore, because they never got to see beyond the mask. They never got to see the scared, hurt, anxious girl hiding behind the cool, calm, and collected facade.
That wasn’t living though. Not really. I had some friendships, but they were always extremely superficial. And I became extremely unforgiving. Hurt me once, even something seemingly small, and we were done. Break my trust the tiniest amount and friendship over.
By avoiding deep relationships, I avoided the possibility of the depth of hurt that might have come throughout those friendships. By avoiding that pain, I didn’t grow as well as I could have in the social graces department.
I was forced to confront my life and drop the mask when I was in my early 20s, when I learned what a real relationship with God was like. When I learned what true fellowship with other believers could look like. It was difficult, definitely not fun, but I was glad to finally stop the exhaustive work of holding the mask in place.
But even though it’s been a decade since I dropped the mask, I still have the same tendencies.
I like to run away from problems rather than confront them. I am not someone who likes conflict of any sort. I’d rather tuck tail and hide away until it passes. Let someone else deal with it. But that doesn’t help anyone, least of all me.
If you’re not a Christian and not sure about that walk of life yet, you can skip the next section, but if you’re curious, I encourage you to read the next part! (Sorry, listeners, you get the whole thing!)
In the life of the Christian faith, there’s this ugly thing called sin. Many times, people think there are BIG sins and little sins. Guess what? There aren’t.
What there are are VISIBLE sins and HIDDEN sins. And, in my opinion, the hidden sins are the “worse” sins, though I don’t really like to use that word either . . . Maybe “more dangerous”? Here’s what I mean:
Visible sins are the ones that everyone sees and knows. You can’t hide them away from anyone, even yourself. Or you can hide them from the rest of the world, but when you are at home and indulge in the sin, you know it’s wrong and do it anyway.
Hidden sins, on the other hand, are the things that may start off as good things. Or at least they seem innocent. They are the things you bury so far inside that you no longer see them for what they truly are anymore. Even the people you speak to about what’s happening in your life don’t recognize it for what it is.
This happened to me recently. I’m not going into details here. My blog is not my circle of trust-friends with whom I can share my heart. But what had started as something good and innocent turned into deep sin in the center of my heart, and my trusted friends didn’t see it that way, even when I confessed it to them afterwards.
I had to dig deep and confront the sin in my life, because it was starting to affect the rest of my life. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew something wasn’t right. And let me tell you. It. Was. Painful!
But the growth I’ve experienced through that pain is some of the biggest and best and most healing growth I’ve ever had in my entire life. And I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experience it had I run from the pain as I’m prone to do. It. Was. Worth. It.
The same thing happens with sports and exercise. I’ve never been into sports or exercise, but I know from experience (from the few times I’ve attempted baseball and softball, cheerleading, and working out) that when you start out with any of it, you go through pain. Your body isn’t used to the exertion. No matter how naturally athletic your body is, you can’t automatically run a 5K or a marathon. You have to train. And that training takes a toll on your body.
The same thing happens emotionally and mentally and spiritually. We all might have natural inclinations toward something, but we all have to go through some form of training to get where we want to be. And that training brings pain. It might not always be an overwhelming pain (thank goodness it isn’t!), but every form of growth requires a bit of pain.
For the things we want in life, we usually don’t notice the pain too much, because we’re so focused on the goal we wish to attain. But that doesn’t mean that the other pain we need to go through isn’t important; that it isn’t necessary.
We can’t run forever. I am who I am today because of the pain that I have gone through in life. Some of that pain felt like it beat me down without any growth at all. But when I actually start putting the pieces back together, that’s when the growth occurs.
Life is messy. It can be painful. But if we constantly run, we’ll never know the good of what might have been right on the other side of that pain.
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Brittany Stonestreet 
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