Have you ever considered what it would be like to have a congenital insensitivity to pain, or the inability to feel pain? Some people, me included, immediately think of how awesome it would be to never worry about the aches and pains of the day.

Unfortunately, this thought overlooks how important it is for us to feel pain. Pain, in its most basic form, is not there to plague us but rather warn us. Pain is the body’s natural response to alert us that something is wrong. What many of us really want is resilience. We still need to be able to feel pain, but we want the strength to recognize it and overcome it, so it does not prevent us from living life. Our faith should be the same. Many people want to live in a perfect bubble of peace. The problem with living in a bubble is we do not grow, or worse yet, we do not grow the Kingdom.

Obviously, one of the greatest teachers of resilience is Jesus. Here was a man who had all the power to feel nothing, but chose to feel everything. He chose to live like a human to understand and relate to us. He suffered loss of loved ones, He faced persecution from those who should have praised Him, and He ultimately suffered the worst physical pain. Through His life and death, He showed us that it is okay to feel deep emotion and pain, and instead of letting them define us, they become a point of growth within us. We should recognize hard situations as opportunities for learning and growth, and allow God to change us for the better through them.

Something I have learned very recently through my own experiences is that resilience is far more rewarding than numbness. Once in a moment of anger, I was about to become unhinged. I was prepared to step across a respectable boundary. Someone struck a nerve with me deeply when challenging a core principle of mine by jeopardizing the safety of a loved one. The emotion was raw and extreme. However, by the time I made it to the person I was angry with, the Holy Spirit had stepped in and taken control. The Lord gave me the strength to be resilient and overcome emotional pain to be an agent for change in this situation.

I have come to learn a tremendous amount through that experience. I could have been numb to the situation, but that would’ve caused someone else to get hurt. I could have been numb to the consequential emotions caused by someone else and hurt many others. Through all of that, I was hurt, but not defeated. I was able to reign in my reaction and act wisely to prevent further pain.

Not only did I grow in my faith and trust in the Holy Spirit and what He can do within me, I found out later that He used me and that situation to be a light to others. A person who was with me when the Holy Spirit stepped in also reacted rashly to the news. Since then, that person has commented multiple times on how glad he was that I was able to hold back and not act out of anger. That unfortunate situation I was in will now be a way for me to help grow His Kingdom when I’m able to share who really helped me stay resilient and act with wisdom and maturity while still acknowledging the pain I was feeling.