On the Practice of Pain

I've been thinking a lot lakely about the question of pain.
I have experienced very little real pain in my life, but I have had to learn to thank God for the pain that I have had. I'm trying at any rate. Sometimes I lose focus. Then it just sucks. For the most part, I try to take it to him.
For years I have suffered with chronic migraines. They are awful. When one comes, it tends to take me away from wherever I am, because I simply can't focus on things. Pain can be remarkably overwhelming. My understanding of these migraines has had to change many times over the years. Scripture has been one of my strongest bulwarks in dealing with them. The greatest encouragement has come from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10: "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." This has become one of the most important passages to my faith. God has used it remarkably. The pain of my migraines has also driven me to deeper faith in prayers. I believe that I truly learned to pray while wrestling with vice grip tightened on my nerves during my headaches.
This summer, I also had to deal with some intense and rather humiliating pain. I hurt my leg at the beginning of the summer by jumping off of a swing. Really, Greg? Really. Unfortunately, I was a camp counselor all summer, which meant that I really needed my leg, and I continued to use it, despite my extreme discomfiture and pain. And this pain did not go away. It lingered all summer; sometimes better, sometimes worse. Because my summer was so hectic, I did not make it to a doctor until two months after the actual injury, and (lucky me) the doctor could not find anything, so he told me to rest it. I had a hard time dealing with this pain, not physically, I dealt with that alright, but emotionally I suppose. It was a big shot to my pride. Then, afterwords, I just wanted it to go away. I wanted to move on (thorn in the flesh, anyone?) and be back to carefree Greg again. Silly me. The question is so often asked, why do we willingly accept good from our father, but not the bad? God sees a whole lot more than we can, and what we consider bad is not always what he considers bad. I am not at all referring to good and evil here, I am speaking strictly of circumstances. I finally listened to God enough to realize that he wanted me to just accept the pain. Well that sucked, but I eventually got to the point where every time my leg pained me, I was able to thank God for it. And gradually, it started healing. It is still not a hundred percent, but after what I put it through this summer, what should I expect?
Well this is plenty of exposition, but it still says very little about my thoughts on pain. I suppose it says a lot, but not very clearly. Suffering is one of those incredibly tricky questions. It's very existence is enough to sometimes drive people away from believing in a benevolent God. Christians, of course have plenty of explanations for this, and many of them are very valid. Suffering is caused by the wrong choices of others, by the effects of our own wrong choices, by consequences for sin, because of sin. I could expostulate a great deal on these, but that is not really my purpose in writing this.
I think pain can only be defined by how you respond to it. Pain will make you or break you. You can fight it, cling to it, deny it, ignore it, fall to it, or overcome it. No matter what you do, pain will make you a different person. They say, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" (or stranger if you are a fan of the Joker). Unfortunately, the Joker's version is more accurate. Pain leaves scars of some sort. Some will make you tougher, some will leave you disabled. A big part is how you respond to it. If you are paying attention, you will see how pain can make you grow.
Sometimes people say that in a perfect world, such as we will have in heaven or would have had if man had not sinned, there would be no pain. I do not know if that is true. How much do we learn through experiencing pain? Think about it. You learn not to touch a hot frying pan because it hurts. Building muscle is only significant because it requires enduring pain to get there. A rose is more beautiful for it's thorns (if you ask me at any rate). God created both light and darkness. Contrast is beautiful. Part of me believes that in a perfect world, we would still learn through pain. Let us not forget that at the fall, God said that pains would be greatly increased; he did not say they would be experienced for the first time. I think if you fall on gold paving stones, you still skin your knee. But God is our father. He picks us up when we fall off our bike.
Perhaps I am wrong about all this. Or at least some of it. I have only ever known a broken world that experiences pain. It is hard to conceive of a world where there is none. Perhaps my mortal mind is just too small.