{"id":2579,"date":"2023-02-11T14:31:08","date_gmt":"2023-02-11T22:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=2579"},"modified":"2023-02-09T15:25:49","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T23:25:49","slug":"dear-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=2579","title":{"rendered":"Dear Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From a recent article in the New York Times<\/em> I learned a Swedish phrase that spoke to me: k\u00e4rt besv\u00e4r. K\u00e4rt, means \u201cdear or cherished,\u201d and besv\u00e4r, means \u201cpain.\u201d The phrase reminds us to look for the positive in the negative; it’s always there. Paying a bill is a pain, but having the money to pay it is a blessing. Taking care of a loved one can feel like a burden, but having a loved one to care for is a great blessing. Who hasn’t complained about a job, or doing household chores? But having a job, having a house to take care of are great blessings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because life comes with pain, inevitably, k\u00e4rt besv\u00e4r gives us a choice, shall we descend into grumbling and “woe-is-me”? Well maybe we should, for a time at least! Let’s acknowledge our hurt. But finding the associated blessing also gives us a way to temper our anger and depression with gratitude and light-heartedness. You have to have a back to have back pain. You have to have the blessing of a child to have the pain of worrying about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same, I think, applies to our church. We have our pains. We have our struggles. Conflict in a community is probably as inevitable as occasional pain is in every life. But you have to have a community in order to have conflict in the community, and having a community is a great blessing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a recent article in the New York Times I learned a Swedish phrase that spoke to me: k\u00e4rt besv\u00e4r.… Read more Dear Pain<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministers-messages","category-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2579"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2598,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions\/2598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}