by Bill Yount

I felt I could no longer endure the painful trial going on in my life for so long. In frustration, I cried out to God. "What are You doing to me?" He said, "I'm making a man of God out of you!" He continued, "I did not cause your pain but I'm using it."

The orthopedic doctor calls it a frozen shoulder. Jesus calls it healed. It's a muscle beneath the shoulder that becomes locked up and is painful. The orthopedic doctor said, "You must stretch your arm to loosen that muscle. Here are six exercises twice a day for six weeks including hanging on a bar. You must stretch your arm until it hurts. Then lean into the hurt and count for twenty seconds with excruciating pain and then repeat." After a few exercises I thought about the doctor, "He's got to be kidding me! It feels like I'm tearing my muscle apart. Like I'm ripping it out of my arm."

He also advised me to visit a massage therapist. As she was working on my arm muscle I had to let her know something. "It hurts! That's painful!" She asked me a question, "But is it a good pain or a bad pain?" I said, "I am a no pain person."

I was told if you want to recover faster, you can have someone else stretch your arm because they will pull it farther than you would. I thought to myself, "How stupid is that?" But in desperation to end this ordeal, I chose a physical therapist to stretch my arm. The pain was so great, I laughed. I said to him, "Am I going crazy? Why did I laugh when I felt the worse pain of my life?" He said, "That's your release! That laughter is your release!"

I now believe pain can be an ingredient of laughter. I promise if you are now in pain that is beyond words, there will be a time when you will laugh again, and even drown in God's laughter. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh." Luke 6:21

There was a time when my pain almost stopped my ministry. On a ministry trip I became...