Pain and Potatoes

The pain tastes as fresh today as it did a year ago. You would think after all this time healing would have left a somewhat different flavor on the wound. The only difference is how long the taste of it lingers on my tongue after I dare to try it again.
Not too long ago, you wouldn't have been able to make me taste something this hard to understand.If this pain were an unpleasant vegetable, I would have shoved it deep into a pile of other thoughts, like a child hiding her peas in the mashed potato mound, hoping that the flavor would be hidden. The flavor though always pops up and if you are trying to hide it in your mashed potatoes, you end up with nasty potatoes and an even worse aftertaste.
Another technique I've seen used is to leave the unpleasant thing on your plate and eat around it. Every bite you could enjoy is tainted by the smell of the pain waiting its turn. The juices from it run into delightful things and soon everything is unpleasant.
So now, when that plate is handed to me, steaming with freshly cooked pain I go ahead and taste it. I eat it first so that it is off my plate and all the bites that follow taste that much more joyful.
Pain is inevitable. The victory though  is already won.
I rest knowing that the outcome is decided. I know that even if I don't agree with the methodology God has already worked out the ending. This pain from the past will continue to appear on my plate. I can eat it and know that it will not cause me harm. It is only pain and, in time, it will be gone.