Pain changes the order of things. It strikes, altering our world, violating and upending everything we thought just the second before was normal, balanced and right. In one instant the onslaught of pain turns our right living into “This is living?”
Pain is an intruder with many masks. It vagrantly attacks us either emotionally or physically. It is especially vicious when it blasts both realms. A flame, a nail, and hammer can inflict acute pain that will bring us to our knees, make us throw whatever is close enough, and spew awful words. Unexpected nerve shattering pain is mind bending and often makes us forget our manners. Fear, anger, and grief are pains of another sort, just as debilitating and paralyzing as seeing blood after slicing a finger. New seasons of life can appear terrifying and unsurmountable, like sending our first-born to kindergarten. Adjustment carries with it angst and anguish.
“Pain is not a respecter of persons,” would say someone who had a lot of experience with Band-Aids, and it is so true it hurts. We have all screamed “Ouch!” kicked a door, and cried buckets of tears about something that hurt our bodies or feelings. Then we recover, the bandage comes off, the scab dries, the refrigerator is covered with colorful pictures and bus schedules, and we move on. Life is good again.
Chronic pain is different. This pain doesn’t leave footprints, it leaves laundry, settling into nerve fibers and taking up residence in our souls. When unmitigated pain slams our world, staying upright in that world becomes nearly impossible. Wounded by a fall or a caustic slur, we can run to someone we love. Fickle chronic pain stymies us, making us wonder if we are loved at all. Sometimes we don’t know what hurts more.
Chronic pain seems to go on forever. Blessedly the episodes come and go. The caveat is that there is no schedule, no warning, so the victim must always be on guard. At times this calm-to-crises lifestyle creates a “laissez faire” attitude and life is great fun while it is. It’s hard, though, to ward off a sense of dread of the familiar odor of what may be just around the corner. We know it will be back.
Christians face a hefty challenge when put to war with pain. We think suffering is our opportunity to show our stuff and are supposed to react to pain with joy.
“A bee just stung me! Praise the Lord!”
Maybe we can pull that off sometimes, but usually at first we focus on the sting more than Jesus. The other day I sliced my thumb with a bread knife and after the bleeding stopped, I thanked God I had not cut off my whole thumb. I hope my belated gratitude counted in heaven.
C.S. Lewis observed thoughtfully, “It sounds absurd; but I’ve met so many innocent sufferers who seem to me gladly offering their pain to God in Christ as part of the Atonement, so patient, meek, even so at peace, and so unselfish that we can hardly doubt they are being, as St. Paul says, ‘made perfect by suffering.’ On the other hand I meet selfish egoists in whom suffering seems to produce only resentment, hate, blasphemy, and more egoism. They are the real problem.”
As witnesses of our faith to the world we don’t want to be a problem, but while enduring long-term chronic pain our resolve may tremble. When the headache pounds, the grief won’t let go, the backache debilitates, we cry like the psalmist, “All the day I’ve been stricken and rebuked every morning.” (Psalm 73:14), and we wonder desperately where in the world God is. Suffering should bring the best out in us, but I submit, it is after the suffering that we see the grace. We endure as best we can, with all the faith weaponry God gives, and when the pain finally lifts, it is how we recover and enter back into the world that the Holy Spirit shines.
I don’t suffer well, nor am I the Queen of Pain. When I am afflicted over and over for weeks at a time, the pain brings out the worst in me. I can endure only so much reading my Bible, listening to praise music, and breathing deep. Every time, it seems, God brings me to the end of my rope, and I start throwing things, blaring rock ‘n roll, and hissing. “ENOUGH!” I scream.
But it is never enough until my thoughts are spent and I give in.
“Okay, Lord. Have it Your way.”
Just perhaps when Peter wrote that we must “abstain from the passions of the flesh, which war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11), he knew that while in constant suffering, we are weak and those flesh passions which soothe the hurting temporarily are dangerously tempting. We don’t want to go there.
We don’t go there because in our weakness, God is with us even if we can’t feel His Hand upon our head. Only when the pain is gone can we look back with a sigh of relief and gratitude. This is our witness. We join our family and friends gratefully, tenderly, and humbly, for we have been with God through it all, and we are not ashamed.
“If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, let him glorify God.” (1 Peter 4:16)