As I listened to the choir sang "No Cross, No Pain", in my mind I envisioned how we must all be able to bare pain at different (or at some points) - everyone can testify to this reality as it's a integral part of the human experience on earth.
Yet, the context that they were singing about was how Christians must be able to suffer though persecution on earth, that too is a part of pain index except the reward may be different.
Opining that there are two major types of pain on earth - the necessary and the unnecessary need not be rocket science.
As was aforementioned pain is a natural (necessary) phenomenon of the human life experience on earth - anytime one feels the slightest effect from being hurt it qualifies as pain.
In the physical, it may be losing a love one and 'coping with the pain. It may also be about being rejected for a job that you really want - that cause a lot of pain.
Yet the aforementioned are common occurrences, we will continue to lose love ones; and we will be rejected over and over again for opportunities that we compete for - but lose. No one is immune from the human experience index of pain.
Yet, arguably, the unnecessary pain caused by evil intent is the most egregious of all pain. Humans have the propensity to hurt one another. Even as many proclaim America as a Christian nation, the cruelty and the evil that humans historically inflict on others are unprecedented.
Specifically, the days of slavery in America brought out the most vile and inhuman instincts that man acted on. And, most history books gloss over this evil episode n American history - bu not telling the whole truth and story, or remains an open scar on the soul of a nation.
"The New Lynching Memorial Rewrites American History" talks about the forbidden history that should shame all of America. The opening of this Museum is a beginning of walking back the lies and inaccuracies that have been recorded about the the past horrific acts and pain that Americans did to other humans, namely Blacks.
The unnecessary pain cause should never be forgotten, and really the scars will never heal. For centuries, this infamous era of pain was covered-up and forgotten, as far as its complete effects.
If only humans now had the will to see the pain that they have inflicted, or ask God to help them to see the obvious, only then can we ascend to a higher space in God's hierarchy of love.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/lynching-memorial-montgomery-alabama/index.html