What is pain? French bread.

Sometimes pain is worth it.

Even if it hangs around for a little while longer than you want.

On Thanksgiving, my family walked down to the park at the end of our street for a family football game. Skipper played all-time quarterback, so it was my sister and me against my mom and my brother. While Mare is not really an issue, P-Divvy and I usually end up having to double-team The Golden Child, otherwise he will just dominate the entire time. He's a lot taller than both of us, and he has a long history playing the game. Now, I was a pretty solid strong safety back in the day when we made pick-up games at cross country meets and practices, but I might admit that Chris can still manage to score a touchdown if I'm covering him.

It even gave me a little bit of pain to say that.

And I sure didn't walk away from the game without taking somewhat of a physical beating. It was third down, and we had just run a play my dad concocted that failed horribly. He told us to run the same play, except this time I was to fake what I did last time and instead run for the end zone, where he would hit me with a pass. We actually executed the play quite perfectly, and I jumped into the air, caught the ball, and then came tumbling down to the ground. I'm not exactly sure what happened next, but I think some sort of flip or somersault was involved. Either way, I crashed to the ground and landed on my head.

Now I know understand why the helmet is such a crucial component in football.

My head was killing me, and I felt like I couldn't move. My dad asked me if I had a concussion, as if I'm really expert enough to know the answer to that. All I knew was that I hurt. The end.

My mom made us quit the game at that point (well, after my dad made a short pass to my sister to score while my brother and mom were paying attention to me). I was sad to find out that I had fallen just inches short of the end zone. Talk about a double bummer.

When we went back to my parents' house, my mom made me sit with a bag of ice on my head while I watched the Cowboys game. I had a headache for the rest of the day, and my neck was sore for about the next three days.

Curling iron affliction

Pain. Worth it? Absolutely.

Most recently, I burned myself with a curling iron. This isn't the first time it's happened, and it's likely not the last. My sister had burned my face the week before (on Thankgiving, actually—gosh, that was a rough day for me), and it's definitely not uncommon for girls to burn themselves when trying to better their appearances. But I think they would also argue that it's sometimes the price you have to pay when carelessness occurs in the prep process. I mean, good hair trumps a little bit of a burn infliction.

Pain. Worth it? Duh.

There are lots of other situations in life that bring about pain but also end in better things or were at least worth some level of hurt. You might break your hand playing basketball with a bunch of guys and be in a cast for some weeks, but it was worth it to play on their level and outscore some of them; you might run a half marathon with a broken hip and be out for a little while, but you PRed the race; you might get a huge gash on the side of your stomach, but at least you had fun on that Slip 'N Slide; you could get a brain or heart freeze from drinking your Slurpee too fast on a hot summer day, but at least you quenched your thirst; and you might have your heart shattered into pieces by someone you thought was different, but at least you learned what it means to love.

And then there was Jesus, who had a lot more pain than we will ever feel while he was up there on that cross, and look what happened because of that. I think he'd say it was worth it.

Pain hurts, but it usually only lasts for a little while. Sometimes it's worth it, and other times you will find that it's not. But it's all part of the experience of life, and it's pretty unavoidable. It often leaves us with scars or memories that remain with us forever and become part of our storybooks and make us exactly who we are.

Definitely worth it.