When the Pain won’t Go Away

C.S. Lewis wrote a first account of pain in a Problem of Pain. In his own pain after the loss of his wife, he concluded, “We can ignore pleasure. But pain insists on being attended to.” And how true that statement it is. Yet, how much we choose to do the reverse.

 As a therapist, I deal with pain daily, my own included. It is hard to bear witness to another’s pains knowing that there is no quick fix, no magic fairy dust, no bobbity boop wand for me to wave for them to clear up the hurt. I don’t want anyone to experience pain; I want the reverse - nothing but happiness. However, that’s simply not how it works. This is a journey my clients, your friends, must walk. I can’t take it from them, and neither can you. And one of the most difficult hurdles of pain for anyone to clear is the “why.” Sometimes that answer is readily available and sometimes, most times, it isn’t. 

 Whether you are follower of Christ or not, sometimes the “why” of a situation is simply not answerable. I don’t know why any child suffers, falls in death’s grip, or faces insurmountable odds. I don’t know why some people who’ve done nothing but good on this earth fall victim to incurable diseases or why violence or death takes them way before it is their time or why their family crumbles. I simply do not know. Like you, I can guess, I can hypothesize, but, ultimately, I just don’t know. Nor do the families or individuals in pain need me, or you, to know. People in pain don’t need a “fix”; they need a heart that can hold them as they hurt. Here in lies the rub.

 We want to provide the answer though. We want to provide the fix. Why? Because, often, their pain makes us feel uncomfortable. Their pain produces in us possibly a remembrance of some of our own pain, of some of our own unresolved hurt. Or maybe, it makes it us feel helpless, powerless, or inadequate that we can’t fix their hurt. Regardless of our reason, we must remember, they are not asking us to fix it. And, as a follower of Christ, He’s not asking you to fix it either. 

 God tells us, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). He doesn’t sugar coat anything. He does provide us hope though, “But I have overcome the world” (John16:33). It’s the hope that allows us to bear the trouble. Paul also tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 that our suffering does not return void; it has purpose. The only one who is able to provide that kind of hope, a hope that there is purpose in the pain, the hope that one day there will be ultimate healing, is Christ, and Christ alone. Yes, we are called to “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2), but to “bear” them means we become fellow-traveler’s, those who can empathize and sympathize, with the burdened in their heart-broken, grieving, lonely, and frightening world, not fix “it.”

There is no easy way to endure pain. C.S. Lewis observes, “The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say ‘My tooth is aching’ than to say ‘My heart is broken.’” But it must be endured to be healed. It is not mine or your job to “conceal”/ “fix” another’s hurt. The job is to walk along side the hurting so they know they are not alone. Sometimes we are their holders of hope until hope can be returned to them. May we hold their hope well.