Pain can be a drain — emptying you of good things.

Pain can be a strain — loading you with unbearable burdens.

Or pain can be a gain — warning you to turn away from your destructive choices and behaviors; waking you to  your need to humbly open up and ask for help; and prompting you to desperately seek and surrender to the presence of the living, resurrected Jesus Christ and His supernatural strength and powerful peace.

I woke up this morning with the preceding thoughts in my mind. I got on Facebook and the first thing I saw was this quote by Leonard Sweet: “When you hit rock bottom, life’s lowest point, the hard rocks can either crush and shatter you, or you can trust the Rock of Ages, life’s ‘Ground of Being,’ to save and shelter you and set your feet on Higher Ground.”

Perhaps God is trying to encourage you to move beyond pain’s drain and pain’s strain and into pain’s gain by going after God with all your heart. One thing that helps me do that is to find and participate in a Christ-led support group.