It was more than a pain in the neck. The pinched nerves from my cervical discs were spiking at 8 or 9 on the pain-scale and it was almost as hard to explain as it was hard to live with. Pain is exhausting. It’s like a whip that keeps beating you down until you have no fight left and no sleep to count on. At first, redemption didn’t come through relief. It came through the eye-opening suffering that I began to spot in friends, family and folks at work. I was no longer just nodding when they’d speak of the ordeals they were going through. My empathy-scale starting firing around 8 or 9. PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Participating in the suffering of Christ is often through the burden of feeling the pain of others. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3,4 NIV PLEASE SHARE THIS PIECE. Comments: norepcom@gmail.com