Can pain set you free? One of the well know writers says, "if experience is such a good teacher, pain can be a blessing." An argument can be made that pain is not always an unpleasant gift to be avoided. Generally, pain does not dampen life. More than anything, it frees us to enjoy normalcy in this life. Without it, we would lead unbalanced, paranoid lives, encountering unknown dangers, never confident that we weren't destroying ourselves. Pain is the great inhibitor which help us getting in danger. When you don’t have the feeling of pain, the doctors will restrict you to many activities, even simple regular routines. You are not free to do pretty much anything. Walk, or run or to play an musical instrument or even to dress nicely and to wear a good shoe can be prohibitive. Lack of sense of pain puts you under bondage. In such cases pain sets you free, by letting you know the limits. You need the gift of pain in that it gives the freedom to do what you want to do.
There is a book by the title "Alone No longer" where the author talks about the gift of pain. Stanley Stein, the Author of the book had contracted leprosy (also called Hansen's disease). Most diseases are feared because of their pain - but leprosy is dreaded due to lack of pain. That makes a painless disease so horrible. Hansen's disease numbs your system, that you don't feel pain even when your tissues and organs are dying and decaying. He became blind because of the lack of pain. Each morning, he would wash his face with a hot washcloth. But neither his hand nor his face was sensitive to temperature to warn him that he was using scalding water. Gradually he destroyed his eyes with his daily washing.
There is another disease called 'congenital indifference to pain syndrome'. Such people are born with lack of sensitivity to pain. A little girl, who had this syndrome, had just grown four teeth was laughing hilariously in the families bathroom. The parents went to her expecting that the girl may have discovered some new game, found the baby bitten off her finger and playing with blood, and making patterns with the blood on the floor. Without pain, she had lost the sense of self protection mechanism. Mr Stein calls it "painless hell" in the book. People with Diabetes also face similar dangers of losing sensitivity to the fingers and toes.
In fact, these stories tell us that pain is a gift from God. It is a gift nobody wants. Our natural tendency is to avoid pain as much as possible. It is unpleasant and ‘painful’. Pain affects soul, spirit as well as body. While physical illness is a fact of the body, its impact on soul, mind and emotions is significant. Mental pain is many times worse than physical pain. C S Lewis writes, "Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. 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". We can call them pain, suffering or affliction. Regardless of what you call it, or what kind of pain you have, nobody wants to seek after pain. But if it comes, the best way to cope is to embrace it. We need to be prepared to embrace pain if it comes.
Pain can be a good teacher, if we try to learn from it. In Psalm 119:71, the psalmist says " It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn from your Word." Psalm 119:67 says, "before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I keep your Word." Christians can do exceedingly more in their sufferings than in their joys. Paul says, "so we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance” (Romans 5:3).
Pain is a great equalizer. It makes us all brothers and sisters in a very special way. Anyone who has shared a hospital room with another patient, knows that you can remember your room mate even if you never see each other again. It is because you can relate better in suffering. It makes no difference if you are rich or poor, man or woman, learned or ignorant, the feeling of pain is the same. I read a story of a former US president Grover Cleveland, who was diagnosed with cancer. Leaders were afraid that the news of the illness of the president might crash the stock market. So they decided to arrange a yacht to become the operation theater. If you must have surgery, that's the way to do it! But President Cleveland wrote later, " I have learned how weak the strongest man is under God's decree, and I see in a new light the necessity of doing my work in the allotted time". Pain is a great equalizer, peasant or president, rich or poor, the dimensions of pain are pretty much the same.
Pain puts life in perspective. Suffering helps us put our priorities in a different perspective. A lot of people re-evaluate the priorities when going through pain. How many of us have seen that an illness has lifted up some people to a different plane? I have seen people sorting out through their old pictures, and financial documents and updating their wills, when affected by illness. Illness and suffering help us get our values in order. A great preacher had to undergo a tonsillitis surgery. He was told that cutting the part of throat has risk of losing his voice. He could not think of a life without voice, because his calling is to preach. It goes with singers, or runners or athletes or ball players. They all have to evaluate the risks when afflicted. William Booth, the founder of salvation army was growing blind with a disease. He preached until his death, saying, " I preached when I had eyesight, I will preach when I don't have eyesight. God can use me still without my eyes. An old village preacher said like this, "sickness has its value, because when you are flat on your back, there is no place to look but 'up'. When pain comes, let's pray to God to give us the grace to embrace it."
The story of the remarkable man Job in the Bible teaches us how we can embrace pain when it comes. He didn't ask for it, he didn't deserve it, he was an honest man always trying to do the right thing pleasing to God. But he was afflicted physically, mentally and spiritually. Everything and everyone in this world had left him, except his wife. Even she asks him to curse God and die. What deeper bottom can you hit?
Some say this this is not a real story because it is not practically possible to have this much affliction on one person. If we look at the stories of people who lost families and all material possessions in natural disasters we can easily find hundreds of people who ended up as the only one left with a wounded body and spirit, much like Job. I know of a person in India whose whose family was wiped out by an avalanche in the middle of the night, taking away his wife and 4 children and left him alone wounded and paralyzed the rest of his life.
When you go through such devastation, you go through the normal stages of questioning and bitterness. Job asked to himself how a loving God can let this happen to him. (Job Chapters 30 -34). Job says, “God, I cry out to you but you do not answer; I am innocent, but God denies me justice. Although I am right, I am considered a liar; although I am guiltless his arrow inflicts an incurable wound." God finally appears on the scene in Chapter 38 . God talked to him in a whirlwind and, oh boy, God gave him some questions to ponder. In Chapter 38:3, God tells Job in the whirlwind, "brace yourself like a man, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who marked off its dimensions?who laid its cornerstone? Where were you when the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy at the creation time? Where were you when I shut up the sea behind limits? Have you ever given orders to the morning to appear? Have you visited the treasuries of snow to see how it is formed? who made the path for the lightning? Can you shout to the clouds and make it rain? who makes the wild donkeys wild? Who gave the horse its strength? Stand up like a man and brace yourself for battle." Wow, God gave some tough lessons to him in the midst of his suffering? God's words hit Job with devastating power. Job responded with repentance and humble surrender. He said, "Lord, I knew nothing about anything and did not understand. Things are too wonderful for me" (Job 42:2,3). God wanted Job to be simply trusting God like a child so that he will see the marvelous works of grace waiting in the future.
God is a good God. Who are we to sit on the judgment throne of morality when we cannot even cause a lightning to streak, a wind to stop or or make a simple bird to lay an egg. We have nothing to complain, but everything to praise God. A God wise enough to create the world, is wise enough to watch over it and He is more than enough to watch out for me. This is another reason I love the Bible. This concept of suffering is not seen any other books ever written. Rather than just simply to accept suffering unhappily, the Bible teaches us to embrace suffering with joy if it comes. It simply gives the assurance that God's great wisdom undergirds the suffering. God knows what He is doing and He will see me through my suffering. Peter writes (1 Peter 4:12,13, "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the suffering of Christ, so that you will be joyful in His glory yet to be revealed."
Apostle Paul shared his own story about about a thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12). Paul prayed three times to remove his “thorn in the flesh,” and wrote, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me” (2 Corinthians 12:8). God did not remove it but God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9), and so “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Pain and suffering give us hope for future glory. He writes (Romans 8:18) "I consider our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." He continues in verse 26. "Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. We know that all things work together for the good to those who love God." If God is for us, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? trouble or hardship? or persecution or famine? nakedness or peril? death of life? any powers present or in the future? None of these can separate us from the love Christ. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us."
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