Lately,
I have been struggling to understand the concept of pain. Pain is more
complicated than just an unpleasant state of being. There are different types
of pain. There are different emotions attached to the different types of pain.
There are different ways of dealing with pain. There are different people who
experience different types of pain. However, I have been relatively ignorant to
the essence and complexity of suffering. Pain is a relatively unfamiliar topic
to me. There have been a great deal of times where I have suffered from
sadness, anger, anxiety, exhaustion, and many other forms of emotional pain.
There have also been a great deal of instances where I have suffered stings,
aches, soreness, bodily illness, and many other forms of physical pain. I just
haven’t experienced pain with as intense severity as others have in the world.
I am very grateful that God has spared me of such extreme pain. However, I hate,
more than anything, that millions of
people do experience intense suffering. I love and dislike my relationship with
pain. I love how we are just acquaintances, but I don’t love how we are not
friends. If we were friends, I wouldn’t be ignorant to pains character. If we
were friends, I wouldn’t have the guilt of not being friends with pain while
millions of others are. If we were friends, I would have a greater level of
empathy for those who are also friends with pain. I pray to God every night asking Him to end
the pains of others and to allow the sufferers to allow God to strengthen them.
Can I righteously ask this? Although I have had such little experience with the
coexistence if pain, God, and faith, can I honestly just assume that their
suffering can easily be subdued by faith in God. The correct is no. I can’t. I
lack the basic understanding.
Having faith in and praising God
while life is going well is so blissfully easy. God has granted me glorious
peace and happiness in situations where if I didn’t allow him in my heart I
would still have peace and happiness. Please don’t misinterpret this as me
saying I don’t need God. Every moment of my life when I feel Gods presence is infinitely
greater in value than moments where I shut God out. The logic of my
relationship with God would make it easy to assume that in moments of pain I
would remain strong through faith and maintain a certain level of peace and
happiness. Well for me personally quite the opposite happens. I have
experienced incredibly intense physical pain before. I felt as though my
stomach was being twisted, stretched, and burned all at the same time. This is
not a common occurrence, but it has happened. I tried praying to God, but the pain
was too much. It shames me to say in that moment of weakness I told God that I
was ready to die if that meant my agony would end. My soul gave up trying to
fight my suffering, but even worse I gave up on God. My surrender to pain
validated that I wasn’t strong enough to let God strengthen me. I let God down.
Months go by and I am training for a
5K with my mother. She got this app called “Couch to 5K”, and it is meant for
non-athletic people to build up the endurance to run a 5K. Each workout gets
harder as we slowly begin to walk less and run more. When we first started it
was relatively easy, but as weeks went on it increasingly became harder to
complete. I again was experiencing moments of great suffering. I tried to pray,
but I found it easier to be consumed by my discomfort. It was like my pain was
demanding to be felt.** I could only remain focused on my burning lungs and how
every breath only fueled its fire. I couldn’t stop thinking about how my heart
was beating so fast as if on the verge of explosion. My mind couldn’t begin to
understand how can and how has anybody survived this kind of exhaustion. After
you run, the body’s and mind’s sense of accomplishment motivates you to run
another time. This is how many runners find the strength to run frequently, but
I was not okay with just running for the feeling afterwards. I realized how I
dealt with hurt during my runs and in general needed to change. If I want a
strong and durable relationship with God, I must learn how to allow him to help
me deal with pain.
I listen to music when I run, but
instead of interpreting the lyrics literally I manipulate the meanings to
reflect my relationship with God. For example, the song “I’ll Be There” by Jackson
Five played, and I imagined it was God singing the lyrics directly to me. God
helped me this way by giving me the tools to help myself while simultaneously remaining
attached to him. Each time I ran, each time I suffered, the pain consumed me
less until my praise and communication to God consumed me more. While each run
became more physically demanding, my spirt was lifted and distanced from the
hurt by God. Each run I tried to run faster than the last, and paradoxically I
suffered a little less with each run. However, listening to music while running
seemed like an accessory I couldn’t afford if I wanted to genuinely receive
Gods help. On the day of the actual 5K I knew I had and could run without any
musical assistance. It was just me and God. I completed it to the best of my
physical ability and also with a happy heart. Pain didn’t defeat me. God
protected my spirt.
Completing the 5K was not the
greatest accomplishment achieved through my training process. I learned
something extraordinary. Something I never thought was possible, but was the
answer to my question-“How do we deal with pain?” God has answered this
question, in my favorite way… A PARADOX. Thanks to Gods endless grace, I know
now there is pleasure to be found in pain.
Running has become an amazing spiritual
activity for me. I have become closer to pain and effectively closer to God.
Moments of pain were once the moments when I was most separated from God
because I felt as though He wasn’t there. Now moments of pain have evolved to
become the moments where I am closet to God because I have never been more
aware of His presence. I hear God in the lyrics to songs. I feel God in my rapidly
beating heart. I taste God in my dry mouth. I smell God in the crisp refreshing
autumn air. I see God running alongside
me and cheering me on. That strong and beautiful connection to God is the
pleasure I find in pain. Faith in God exceeds experiencing only the easy and
peaceful times. Having a relationship with God involves all the painful and hard situations God can change into pleasant moments. After my last run before the 5K, I did something I have never done so seriously before. I actually fell to my knees to pray. I thanked God for
increasing my understanding of pain. I thanked God for the strength He has
given me. I thanked God for the stronger sense of empathy for those who suffer
He has blessed me with. I thanked God for giving me hope that people who are
experiencing pain can reach out to Him and gain pleasure from the pain. I feel
so enlightened now that I have gone through this process of confronting pain
directly and coming out victorious because of God. There are personal flaws in
this lesson. I know that pain shouldn’t be a goal, and I shouldn’t
intentionally make myself suffer. I also know that there is so much more
complexity to pain that I have yet to encounter. However, I have found a source
of attainable hope. When I look at the world and see the inevitable and
excruciating suffering of my neighbors, I can confidently and happily say that
God can graciously give the sufferers "the strength to face all conditions" Philippians 4:13. We just have to spread Gods love.
**Credit for this idea goes to John Green (an
awesome human being). It is featured in his book The Fault in Our Stars
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