when love demands the infliction of pain

I don't think I'll ever get used to giving my child shots of medicine into his thigh. More proficient, yes - happy doing it, no. Perhaps that is as it should be. It should not be pleasant to inflict pain on one whom you love. Yet there are times when love demands the infliction of pain, because there is no other way to gain the most good for the one loved. It is hard to do the unpleasant, to make your child cry out in pain. By God's grace we do it faithfully - and then comfort our son's tears.

Why then do I not trust my perfect Father in all His dealings with me? In His perfect wisdom, He knows what will be for my best good. And sometimes the only way to effect that good is through pain. So He inflicts it out of love, yet perhaps it pains Him to inflict pain, the same way I am never happy to cause my own child pain. And then He comforts the tears that He causes in us. Surely He doesn't cause us needless pain, needless tears. What parent would delight to needlessly hurt their child? Surely God is the perfect Father. I pray that I will trust Him when He causes me pain - that I will remember what it feels like to grieve that I must cause pain, and at the same time to know that there is no other way, and that love demands it.