Compassion, Pain, and Atonement

As I was perusing Tumblr the other night, I came across several quotes that I thought were insightful; a few of them dealt with topics like pain and compassion. Since reading those, my mind has been caught on one of the greatest life lessons I've learned outside of church (though it's since been reinforced there many times): that pain enables compassion and empathy. 

I don't intend to romanticize pain; I'm not arguing that "broken people are the most beautiful" or anything like that. I don't mean to single out certain individuals or experiences as having the monopoly on injury. Instead, I just want to write a few words about the idea in general, as communicated to me in a simple quote from one of my favorite characters, in one of my favorite series: 

"When people get hurt, they learn to hate. When people hurt others, they become hated, and racked with guilt. But... knowing that pain allows people to be kind. Pain allows people to grow, and how you grow is up to you!"

When I first heard this, I was struck by how poignant the sentiment is. When I was just a teenager, I focused on how it gives you a choice when faced with pain - growth, determined by you. You can grow bitter, or grow compassionate. It made me think about how no matter what I experience in life, I have the moral freedom to determine how I will grow in response to my experiences.

As I've grown older, I've learned new lessons, especially regarding what it means to be human, and our duty to our fellow beings. One new lesson I've learned is that this statement rejects the notion that humans are reactive, that we're trapped in one course of action, and everything is deterministic. It gives us a choice, when we feel pain - do we lash out, or reach out? When we experience pain, in that moment we have the choice of either using it as justification to hurt another or to use that pain as a building block of compassion. Pain allows people to be kind because pain is a universal experience; nobody will go through life without ever experiencing pain. And because pain is so essential to what it is to be human, it's something that we can all bond over.

I mentioned previously that this lesson has been reinforced time after time in my church attendance; and it turns out that it's one of the building blocks of the most significant beliefs a Christian holds: the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He not only experienced pain in a general sense, but He thoroughly experienced each and every pain that every human being will ever experience. From the agonies of flesh when He was tortured by the Romans, to the exquisite pain of complete and total abandonment when He cried out, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" 

As human beings, we can reach out to each other and take the first steps towards understanding, because we can have compassion for others touched by pain. Jesus Christ has a complete and perfect understanding of that pain itself, and how to be saved from it. That was the purpose of His sacrifice - His atonement. To put us at one with God, by rescuing us from all things that pull us down - including those aspects of pain that continually urge us to hate and hurt others in turn. 

We can learn lessons from pain - in particular, the lesson of compassion, of humanity, and of individual growth - but we don't have to hold on to its baggage. Our older brother already took care of that, if we'll let Him remove it from our backs.