THE ESSENCE OF PAIN

The Essence of Pain 

Suffering breaks the heart of God. He weeps as we weep. In our ordeal of affliction, His tears wash over us.

I have felt God’s Presence in pain’s crucible and found His mercy and love for me there. Through the experience of suffering, God has shown me His beautiful essence in it and I understand that nothing comes at me without His sovereign permission. 

While my goal in life has not been to search for the good in affliction, chronic pain wrapping me in a cloak of daggers over the past several decades has warranted me seclusion and time to ask questions. What is it, I’ve wondered, about our suffering that God allows if everything first comes through His heart of love?

“There is a divine mystery in suffering, a strange and supernatural power in it, which has never been fathomed by human reason” writes L.B. Cowman. 

Suffering is a universal event, unwelcomed, unexpected, and usually unplanned. It ruins a day, alters perspectives, turns nice people into ogres, and mean people into sissies. It shatters plans and dreams and threatens to rewrite our story. The good news is God is the Author and His story never changes. He is our refuge, fortress, and shelter and He is faithful, trustworthy, and strong. No matter our pain, our Sovereign God has a better plan for us.

“Because you made the LORD your dwelling place…no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague shall come near your tent…because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him….” (Psalm 91: 9,14)

          During a recent episode of chronic back spasms, I asked God to take me deep into His mystery.  Just what is the essence of pain, the golden thread that keeps us holding on to our faith in the midst of despair and loss of heart and soul? When in the throes of suffering, we cry out to God and question His purpose. Our prayers are deep and desperate. We want our Rescuer even more than relief. 

I believe pain is a gift because it ultimately brings us closer to God. In His presence, though the pain persists, His glory pours into us so that we experience the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. It is here that pain becomes a gift.

Pain teaches Patience.

Pain exhorts Adoration.

Pain offers Invitation.

Pain ushers us into the Now of God’s Presence.

Yes, Beloved, in pain we can know that we are not alone. When He suffered and died on the Cross, our Savior knew our deepest needs. No matter the agony, our merciful, compassionate, all-powerful Rescuer accompanies us.  His trumpet is loud and clear for the Sufferer to hear –

          “God has not destined [you] for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died so that whether [you] are awake or asleep [you] might live with Him.” (1 Thess. 5:9-10)

Pain Teaches Praise

 PRAISE

“He inhabits the praises of people.” (Psalm 22:3)

“Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy name!

Bless the Lord O my soul, and forget not His benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” (Psalm 103:1-5)

“And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard me.’” (John 11:41)

        When the spasms abated like a retreating monster licking his chops, I laid on the bed whispering something like, “Jesus. Jesus. Thank You!” The praise was as natural as my breath and my heart knew Who to thank.

        I gazed around the bedroom with fresh appreciation for every familiar object – the dresser with necklaces hanging like tinsel from the lamp, my bedside table stacked with books of inspiration and comfort, and the window where a tree with sun-painted leaves reminded me it was still a summer day. Yet, it seemed I was in a holy place permeated with praise. Yes, God had been with me all along and now He brought me out of the pain into His peace where I could enjoy Him.

        “…even though I walk through the darkest valley … His rod and staff they comfort me…..” (Psalm 23:4,NIV)        

When pain strikes it is sometimes too hard to pray, let alone give thanks. “Thanks for what?” I’ve wondered in the heat of the battle. “What is the good in this and how can I endure it?”

Shaken and stressed in our suffering we want God’s rescue, not God Himself. But He knows what we need and only in His presence will we get it. There is a particular power in the praise that arises in the midst of distress.

Before Jesus called Lazarus from the grave where the man had been dead and bound in corpse cloths for three days, He thanked His Father for hearing Him. In the midst of great sorrow and weeping, Jesus, moved also, praised His Father for listening to Him. I love that Jesus, in His humanness wept as we weep. We, too, must know God always hears our cries. Through the Holy Spirit He pours praise into our souls. This praise was the power of Jesus that drew Lazarus from the grave and it is given to us as well when we give God praise in our suffering. Our praise reveals the Glory of God.

I believe when we trust God in the crucible of suffering, He peels from our soul all hindrances keeping us from Him. How sweet our trust is to God, for it was the same with His Son all the way to the Cross. In return He lavishes us with the refreshment of Living Water, the peacefulness of grace, and the holy power of praise.

In pain is the gift of Praise.

Pain Exhorts Adoration

Loving God when unexpected pain strikes is really hard, like trying to have kind feelings toward the hammer after it hits your thumb, a bee that stings your arm, or hot grease splattering in your face. But after a short rage which you hope Jesus didn’t notice, you get over it and go back to your more benevolent self.

            Under the long-term vise of chronic pain, loving God is the only way to survive. He is our only hope, and we depend on that because we can. 

“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised and I am saved from my enemies.” (Psalm 18:1-3)

            Thanking God after a long bout of spasms awakened an electric feeling in my soul. There seemed to be something bursting inside of me. With my whole exhausted being, I wanted to sing and dance with joy and see God’s face, to gaze at Him in adoration. David knew what my words couldn’t form -

             “ I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” “You have made known to me the path of life, in Your Presence there is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:8,11)

            What I was experiencing after the wrenching episode of spasms was  adoration for Almighty God. How could the peace, praise, and joy pulsating through my veins not make me adore my Father in Heaven who had been at my right hand all along?

            God uses hardship, suffering and affliction to show us where true joy can be found. He rescues us so that we will adore Him and know the beauty of His glory. This, too, is another gift from pain, like “honey pouring from a rock” (Psalm 81:16).

In pain is the gift of Adoration

Pain Offers Invitation

             The broken sufferer lives in solitude much of the time. Pain, emotional or physical, intensifies the loneliness. Yet, I’ve found, in the throes of spasms or in despair, though I am lonely I want no company. 

            So much isolation lends itself to depression. The sense of void is a virtual playground for the devil. Myopia, morbidity, and malaise crowd the bed and the head.

            Into this tunnel, the Rescuer whispers Hope. Even when the pain pounds and the darkness drones, an invitation to enter a new glory hovers. It is delivered by a host of angelic messengers, which only the sufferer hears. This spiritual rescue is not a delusion; it is a Calling - an invitation to visit the Glory of God. 

            Lying limp on my bed, my head ensconced in pillows, and electrodes burrowing into my war torn back, I’ve wondered if I’ll ever recover. How could I go back to “normal life? When the pain wanes, I become calm, movement returns and reality as I knew it enters my thoughts. But at first my spirit lingers. I feel a difference in my soul, and I sense the presence of God around me. I do not want to join others, resume my activities - fold laundry, empty the dishwasher, walk my dog - or take a shower and start over. I do not want to forget that I have been broken.

            In his timeless book, “The Wounded Healer“, Henri Nouwen writes, “…perhaps the painful awareness of loneliness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence.”

            As Christians committed to serving Christ by ministering to others as He did, we must suffer afflictions that take us away from this world and into the depths of our souls. Here in this crucible we face our fears, sorrows, and failings. Jesus walks through every cracked door with us, and welcomes us as His - saved, comforted, and adored. These are the gifts, dear sufferers, we bring into the world where people in darkness, pain, and loneliness cry out for compassion.

            Pain offers an invitation into the courts of the King. Since he uses all things, including afflictions, for good, we can find purpose in our wretched wounding. To be invited into His courts is to be welcomed into the presence of His Son, Jesus Christ, who sits at His right hand. Here mysterious glories are revealed as our senses heighten in awareness of His presence in all things. Our brokenness is beautiful to our suffering Savior.

            “Oh how I love Your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes faints for Your courts.”Psalm 84:1)

            In pain is the gift of an Invitation.

Now

            Decades of experiencing chronic pain has taught me how to be more patient. Believe me, this was quite a battle because the stabs of spasms were tempests of pain I had never before experienced. Many days I was rendered a wailing wild woman. I quickly discovered I was not the Queen of Pain.   

            I had visions of clutching the bottom of Jesus’ robe, like the ailing woman in Luke’s Gospel, not with dignity or sweet faith, but with clenched teeth, hot tears, begging, “Jesus! Make it go away!”

            As the years went on and I sought medical help, finding no more solution than just temporary relief with mind-numbing pills, I asked others to pray for me and waited as patiently as I could for healing. Through that time, I learned to pray by myself and found comfort in my conversations with God. I tried to be articulate and intentional in my praying, adding Scripture verses I memorized. I hoped Jesus would hear my voice and touch me. Heal me.

            I remember the day I told the Lord it was okay if He didn’t heal me, and I surrendered my pain to Him. There was nothing I could do on my own to change this unwanted course of my life. I asked Him then to just give me the grace to bear it. In that prayer, I felt withdrawing from me not the pain, but all the anger, disappointment, and bitterness from my soul. The Holy Spirit then breathed deep and whole, expanding my heart. I knew there was another way to live with this pain. I would be obedient to my Jesus through it and allow His grace to pour through me.

            I thought, “Surely this was His purpose for the pain and someday I will please Him in it.”

            “He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side…” (Mark 6:45)

            Sometimes we have the idea that God is leading us to a particular goal or purpose which we just have to hold on to until we get to it. We want something new and we want to do well. I have been waiting for healing, pure and simple. In the meantime, I have been working on faith, prayer and obedience, and trying to earn it. 

            When the disciples got into their boat and went off to sea, Jesus turned to a mountain where He could go to pray. Meanwhile, the boat headed into stormy waters. 

            When a storm hits our life and it seems we are doomed to the winds and raging waters, Jesus is with His Father praying for us. His eyes are not on the tempest and swirling waves. His eyes are on us and He knows our terror and hears our cries. 

            “When it was almost morning, Jesus came to them, walking on the surface of the water…”

            In the midst of our pain, Jesus is praying for us and He is coming to us. It all happens in the midst of what appears to be wreckage and disaster. While we are begging for the storm to be over, our Savior is walking in the storm with us. This is what we must see in our times of suffering. Not when the storm will subside, but that Jesus Christ is walking with us on those turbulent waters. He is present! 

            “Don’t yield to fear. Have courage. It’s really me – I AM!”

            Then Jesus climbed into the boat with His friends, and the stormy waters calmed. 

Just like that, He, too, is in our boat. God wants us to know His Presence in the moment – to see Him walking on the water, now.

What relief, freedom, and joy when we fully grasp that the past can no longer pull at our longings nor the future at our disappointments. The Lord is with us now and all is well.

“God’s purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now.” –Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for His Highest”

This is the last acronym of pain – the “N” for NOW. The gift of pain is not what is next or when there is something new, finally. The gift is the knowing that God is with us NOW and in that only and wholly, can we glorify Him. This is His purpose in all of our suffering, pain, and loss – that we see Him walking on the waters with us – Now.

In pain is the gift of knowing “Immanuel, God with us” now.

UNASHAMED

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)

Chairlift choice - grumpy or Grace?

Will I Need a Chairlift to Heaven?

Conversations with my husband about our future sometimes go south. Particularly when the subject of “chairlift” comes up. To him it’s a positive possibility in the event that we spend the rest of our lives in the home we have come to love. Winter stays in Florida, travels in a luxurious motorhome, and reposes in resort campgrounds along the Pacific shorelines or surrounded by majestic mountains have not deterred us from the comforts of our home in Virginia. Our lovely old home may need some upgrades. That's what some would call it.

            A lift to carry me up to the second floor is not on my idyllic radar. I don’t want disability directives messing with my dreams. I don’t want a chairlift; what I want are squats, treadmills, hikes, and a Barr Class. I want my strength back, not even my youth.

            What I want, when you come right down to it, is Grace. This aging thing along with daily challenges of rheumatoid arthritis is closing in on me. Reminders of it like senior discounts, jars that won’t open, Medicare notices, and sagging you-name-its make me irritable. Okay, fearful and defensive. I need Grace.

            LORD, You promise me another home where a Senior Pass is not needed, looks don’t count, and disabilities aren’t even known. I understand my residence there in Heaven with You is around a shorter corner. Please, LORD, help me to be content with that beautiful hope.

            Meanwhile, on earth as my fingers cramp and throb, my legs won’t help me out of a chair, and a warm bath feels better than an aerobics class, I want the grace to find this all joy and, yes, even funny. I may not be who I used to be – active, energetic, and capable. I am still wholly God’s. Within me is His Life, His Purpose, and His Significance. I suppose if the day comes that I will need a chairlift, I will push the “Up” button and ride with dignity and grace.  Pretending I am ascending to Heaven, I will be covered in glory and radiant in God’s love. Wrinkles and all. I'd still rather take the stairs ...