Lean into the Pain

When I was in middle school I remember roughhousing with some of the other boys in our youth group. You know, boys will be boys or whatever. I was tackled from behind by one of them in a gravel parking lot. My pants were destroyed, my knee looked like a piece of steak that was just freshly tenderized and had a ton of little specks of gravel stuck in it. Naturally, I went to the ER to get it looked at, cleaned, dressed up so that it would heal. There really wasn’t very much skin left, so there was no need for stitches. One of the doctors or nurses came in to clean the wound out, and he mentioned something along the lines of, “this is going to be really painful, but healing comes through the pain.” He was right, it was extremely painful. I tensed up, winced, and even cried profusely at the pain that came as a result of him scrubbing my open wound out with a small scrub brush and some kind of chemical solution. He was right, it was very painful, but my knee eventually healed up just fine, and outside of a pretty ugly scar right over the knee cap you’d never even know it happened. 

I think of that line, “healing comes through the pain” often. I’ve found it to be true physically, emotionally, and even relationally. I mean whose parents didn’t warn them of all the nasty and crazy things that could happen if they didn’t let them clean out a boo-boo or put some Neosporin and a band-aid on a cut. No one really likes pain, I certainly do not. Even with unusually high pain tolerance, any pain that crosses the tipping point brings me to my knees. I wouldn’t choose pain as something to pass my time when I'm bored, and there aren’t too many people I know that would. We don’t have to go looking for pain, it finds us, doesn’t it? It comes in moments that we least expect it and is often accompanied by some kind of loss and grief. Even while having an unusually high physical pain tolerance, I can’t say the same about emotional pain. The kind of pain that comes quick, and lingers for what seems like forever. I regularly feel the pain of grief from miscarriage, friendships that have been lost over the years, close family members and friends that have passed on. I regularly feel the pain of broken relationships, the pain that comes from living in a fallen world, and a constant barrage of bad news. Pain is inescapable, there isn’t any way around it.

I think what that doctor or nurse said that day has been helpful, not just to that moment in their office but in many moments throughout my life when my natural reaction to any type of pain is to run away from it. I hear those words, “healing comes through the pain” every time I’m tempted to ignore the pain of my life, and when I’m tempted to escape it or say something spiritual about it to move the attention away from my pain on to something else. Scripture is filled with passages that recall the comfort that comes with the presence of Jesus. Sometimes I read them, and they feel so disconnected from my experience. Sometimes I read about the miracles that he performs, like healing blind Bartimaeus, the women at the well, or the women with the issue of blood, and think that those stories are so tidy and not messy. I don't think this does justice to the pain that they felt. The embarrassment, the shame, the guilt, the anger, the loneliness that their conditions caused them, it had to be painful. Sometimes the real realities of their lives and our lives can get lost in the pursuit of “healing” but that isn’t what we see happen as they interact with Jesus. Jesus shows up right in the middle of their pain,  is aware of it, and attends to it. The woman at the well didn’t clean herself up and pretend everything was alright before Jesus healed her, he healed her in her pain. Jesus meets everyone that He healed in scripture in their pain. That gives me hope and encourages me to lean into my pain, to pay attention to it, to attend to it, and bring it before Jesus honestly.

For many of us that may look very different. While we all experience pain, we may not all experience it to the same degree. Life in a fallen world can be brutally painful. You may have experienced tremendous pain recently through some kind of tragic loss. You may have just endured some significant traumatic experience. Perhaps as you’ve begun to age and slow down a bit you have become increasingly aware of the pain that you’ve been avoiding for years and maybe decades. Whatever the pain is that you are experiencing I encourage you with the same encouragement the doctor or nurse encouraged me with, “healing comes through the pain.” Don’t avoid the pain, lean into it. Bring it before Jesus, invite some trusted friends within your community of faith to attend to your pain with you. Reach out to a Pastor or Counselor, let them enter into your pain with you. 

What pain have you been avoiding and hoping it goes away?

How may God be inviting you to lean into your pain today?

I’m thankful for the scars I have. Each scar represents some pain for sure, but It also represents some healing. They serve as little reminders that yes, there was pain, but also that healing comes through the pain. Each scar serves to remind me of the love and care that Jesus has for me, as he meets me in my pain and through it brings healing. It’s not always easy, but it has always been worth it!

Submitted by: Matt Korte