Pain

Rick Warren (with an assist from Paul) has given me a new perspective on pain. Where once it was to ignore, minimize, and hopefully avoid pain—mine and the pain of those I love and care for—, now I see that there is a redemptive power in it.

(To avoid being hypocritical, I confess that it is easier for me to write about pain than to experience it.)

Warren entreats us: “I beg you not to waste your pain; don’t waste your hurt.” What does he mean?
He means that how we live with and attack pain affects us and those around us; it becomes our “deepest life message.” We have these critical choices to make:

     Will I fight pain with endurance and tenacity or surrender, that is, will my actions support others?
     Will I us use my pain to awaken compassion for others suffering the same pain?
     Will I look for the goodness and love in others who try to comfort me (and this includes relatives, friends, healthcare professionals, and those who pray for me), or be oblivious and unresponsive, meaning ungrateful?

Warren calls us to look outward toward others, not inward, as we consider our response to pain. In one of life’s great mysteries, as we tend to others we nurse ourselves.

“I beg you not to waste your pain; don’t waste your hurt. People all around you are going through the very thing you’ve already gone through, and they need your help. They need you to comfort them.”

2 Corinthians 6:4
“in every way we demonstrate that we are God’s servants by tremendous endurance in the midst of difficulties, hardships, and calamities;”
International Standard Version

A final thought. Pain and suffering bring us into the frontline battle with good vs. evil; good because we can reach out to God for comfort, strength, and endurance; evil because Satan can use pain to drive us from God.