All Pain is Created Equal?

“Pain is Pain”

That was a status I saw about a week ago on Facebook. Upon looking at the comments under his status he finally explained what he meant when he said that. He basically feels like all pain is equal. It feels the same, it looks the same, and even though it comes for various aspects of our lives, when it’s all said and done pain is felt and it is the same all across the board.

Now on some small level, I can understand why he feels that way. Social media has exposed us to so many things; it’s hard to even feel some level of sympathy for our fellow man.  We see Facebook statuses of people pouring their hearts out and we automatically think they are “seeking attention”. We can see a woman frantically looking for her child in the mall and what do we do, we look and judge. “Well she should’ve been paying attention to her child” (true story by the way, saw this happen about a year ago). People in general can see someone else’s pain and not feel a thing.  We aren't required to think about what that particular person may actually be going through. And oh, God forbid they try to commit suicide. That is the ultimate act of desperation and attention seeking. And if they are successful in their attempt?  “Well that’s what they get”.  Then in the same breath we can watch TV shows where more sympathy is given to the mistress then the wife. We can cry for a celebrity’s death, but we won’t even say hi to our next door neighbor. We are to have sympathy for ALL people, not just the ones that we think matter.

Let me tell you something about pain….

Pain causes people to stop believing in love, people, and themselves. Pain can rip a family apart. Pain can break marriages. Pain can ruin friendships. Pain will make you angry. Pain will make you feel lonely. Pain will isolate you. Pain will keep you in complete darkness. Pain will assassinate your very being. Pain creates drug addicts, alcohol abusers, obesity, anorexia, suicide….. Listen, if pain were that superficial then we should just be able to put a little ointment on it, slap a band-aid around and “kiss” it all better.  We can overcome pain but I can tell you it’s much easier to overcome that pain with a good support system around you. God didn't intend for us to go through things alone. And for some people, the social media may be all they have to reach out to others. So instead of writing them off as attention seekers, take some time to find out what the underlying issues is. Send them a kind word, write them an encouraging message, offer to exchange phone numbers, invite them to church. The worse thing they can say to you is no.  The bottom line is that we have to start showing my compassion for our fellow man.  Put yourself in the shoes of the one that is grieving. More importantly, think about the last thing you had to go through something by yourself. Think about how much easier it would've been if you had a support system to help you through it. And most importantly, think about the pain you felt.

Didn't feel too good did it?