Paying with Pain

There is a fantastic singer and musician called St Vincent. Her latest song to be heard on the radio is called “Pay Your Way With Pain.” It’s a great song, musically brilliant, I love the title and the sentiment behind the lyrics.

Interestingly I first started hearing it on the radio a couple of weeks ago, just as we approached Good Friday and then Easter Sunday. It got me thinking about how Jesus paid for all our sin, all the pain we cause. He paid through his agonising death on the cross. Jesus paid for us with pain and yet we still insist on using pain as form of transaction, a method of payment. We still insist on using our pain and inflicting pain on others to get what we want.

Where in life are you using pain as a tool? Is it time to stop?

Let us go to God in prayer.

Heavenly Father we thank you for the cross, for the wonder of Easter, for the death and resurrection of Jesus. By His death, the one and most true sacrifice offered for us, He purged, abolished and extinguished whatever guilt there was through the pain that we cause each other, from our sins and transgressions. He offered sacrifice for our sins so that we no longer have to make a sacrifice of ourselves or a sacrifice of each other simply to get by in this life.

Yet still many many people in our world have to suffer trauma, experience pain, put up with abuse both physical and mental simply to live. They are forced each day to experience pain to access basic resources. Heavenly Father inspire us, guide us and teach us; what can we do to stop this cycle of pain as a form of payment? Where do we need to speak out, to challenge, to act so that everyone in our world can have fair access to the most basic of resources without having to suffer first. Give us insight in to the choices we make each day, help us to take stock of the decisions and purchases we choose; so many of them may support and reinforce systems and structures where every day people with less than us have to sell their souls, their truths, their freedom and their bodies simply to make a living.

We pray now Heavenly Mother for those among us who are causing another pain. We pray for those of us who choose to hurt those around us, sometimes those we say we love the most, because we are scared. We pray for those of us who inflict pain to keep control of a situation, a relationship. We pray for those of us who choose to make others suffer as a payment to maintain the status quo with us. Today we pray you open our eyes to true love, a love that is unlimited and boundless. A love that does not demand of others that they jump through hoops or cross fires to receive it.

Holy Spirit we pray now for those of us who have learnt to use the pain others have caused us as a bartering tool to get what we want. We pray for those of us who continue to play the victim because we have learnt this script, this narrative allows us to manipulate situations and manipulate others. We pray for those of us who keep a list of the wrongs others have done, blind to the wrongs we do. We pray for those of us who hold others to account and judgement, casting stones where we have no place to. Today, Holy Spirit, fire us up and push us to the place where we forgive, forget, let go and free those who we bind because the perceived slights and pains they have caused us.

Enough is enough, today is a new today because of the blood that was spilt on Good Friday, the cross that is ultimate payment. Guilt, shame and pain are no longer things we need to bank, store up, hold on to. Today we let go.

Amen