Why I Wouldn’t Trade the Pain & When the Breaking Becomes Beautiful
I used to think the goal was a pain-free life.
To move through this world protected, untouched, unshaken. I mean that’s what society tells us, right? That the ultimate goal is happiness and we should pursue that at all costs.
But if I’m honest, I’ve come to realize that the deepest becoming often begins in the places I never would’ve chosen.
As I look back on portions of my story, some still being unpacked, some still healing, there are chapters I would never wish on anyone. Nor would I have ever wanted for myself.
Yet somehow, when I look back at what it produced in me, I realized I wouldn’t trade the pain.
The world tells us to avoid pain at all costs, to chase happiness, to keep things light.
But what if the goal isn’t to avoid pain—
what if the goal is to let it deepen you, soften you, shape you?
Pain is inevitable in this life. So if it’s not an if but a when, why not focus on how the pain can have a purpose… instead of spending all our energy trying to run from it, or even numb it?
I want to say this gently, especially if you’re walking through something right now that you never would’ve chosen:
Your pain has a purpose.
It doesn’t need to run your life. It doesn’t have to control your story.
But it can shape you in meaningful ways.
It can become part of your purpose.
Psychologists have even found that the deeper you’ve felt pain, the greater your capacity is to feel joy.
What a beautiful paradox—that both beauty and brokenness can coexist. That sometimes the ones who feel the most broken are also the ones most capable of feeling the full depth of beauty.
Looking back, I realize I began to see my pain differently long before I had language for it.
Even in some of my darkest moments, it was as if God gave me a quiet knowing: this will not be wasted.
And He hasn’t wasted it.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still break my heart.
But it means it’s been rebranded.
Now, I carry a deeper empathy. I’m more intentional. I can sit with people in their pain.
I feel life more deeply—not just the lows, but the highs.
I’ve let my pain become part of my purpose, and in doing so, I’ve found freedom.
And that’s what I want for you, too.
Don’t run from your pain.
Let it lead you through—
not around it, not above it… but through it.
Because joy is on the other side.
Not a shallow, feel-good kind of joy, but a real, purpose-giving, character-producing kind.
The kind that reminds you: you’re not broken…
you’re becoming.
This reminds me of a truth I’ve held close in hard seasons:
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
—Romans 5:3–5 (ESV)
So if you’re hurting right now, please hear this:
God isn’t wasting your pain.
It may feel hopeless now, but it is producing something.
Let it form you. Let it ground you. Let it wake you up to a life of deeper meaning.
You’re not broken. You’re becoming.
And that is why, even through the pain and the messiest parts of your story, you can embrace the journey of blissfully becoming—
knowing that all along, you were blooming.
xoxo, B
blissfullyb 