Coach Dungy on pain

This is a portion of a speech that Colts Head Coach Tony Dungy gave at the Athletes in Action breakfast Saturday morning before the Super Bowl. In this speech, he is talking about his youngest son Jordan who suffers from a rare congenital conditions that causes him not to feel pain...

"He feels things, but he doesn't get the sensation of pain," Dungy said. The lessons learned from Jordan, Tony Dungy said, are many. "That sounds like it's good at the beginning, but I promise you it's not," Dungy said. "We've learned a lot about pain in the last five years we've had Jordan. We've learned some hurts are really necessary for kids. Pain is necessary for kids to find out the difference between what's good and what's harmful."
Jordan, Dungy said, loves cookies.

"Cookies are good," Dungy said, "but in Jordan's mind, if they're good out on the plate, they're even better in the oven. He will go right into the oven when my wife's not looking, reach in, take the rack out, take the pan out, burn his hands and eat the cookies and burn his tongue and never feel it. He doesn't know that's bad for him." Jordan, Dungy said, "has no fear of anything, so we constantly have to watch him."

The lesson learned, Dungy said, is simple.

"You get the question all the time, 'Why does the Lord allow pain in your life? Why do bad things happen to good people? If God is a God of love, why does he allow these hurtful things to happen?''' Dungy said. "We've learned that a lot of times because of that pain, that little temporary pain, you learn what's harmful. You learn to fear the right things. "Pain sometimes lets us know we have a condition that needs to be healed. Pain inside sometimes lets us know that spiritually we're not quite right, and we need to be healed and that God will send that healing agent right to the spot. "Sometimes, pain is the only way that will turn us as kids back to the Father."

I know that I'm not the only one who feels pain; we all do. I thought this was a good reminder that the pain in our lives does serve a purpose and is only temporary. We learn from it. We learn what not to touch and what not to do. Pain is a teacher that we must listen to. Sometimes we are trying so hard to things that are harmful to us and pain drives us to let those things and people go. So praise God in the midst of your pain because He is still guiding, teaching, and controling your situation. God knows what is best.