At the Intersection of Faith and Pain
Wrestling with our Christian faith in the midst of chronic pain.
Most of my clients wouldn't know this but I struggle with chronic pain several days of the month. I won't get into the cause on this post but it's been going on for about two years now. I wouldn't classify it as "continuous" pain but it is regular and fairly predictable.Perhaps you know this struggle as well.
I do everything I can to keep it from putting a damper on my personal life as well as my professional life but I am not always victorious. At its worst, I have to miss things: cancel sessions, get someone to watch our son if my husband is at work, miss church or social events, etc. Don't worry... if you see me, I'm feeling fine enough. When it's at its worst, I'm in bed.
We have tried several things to help reduce the pain level, most of which have not helped much. If this is beginning to sound depressing, it definitely is sometimes! But it is really important to me that I fight a good fight and not let my pain be the dominant characteristic in my life. My husband Chad and I have both had to do our own work of trying to reconcile my chronic pain with our faith in a healing God. And, just as importantly, our goal is not to just survive with pain, but to wrangle up some joy on the daily!
Maybe you know the struggle of chronic pain as well. But maybe you are more familiar with emotional pain of chronic anxiety, depression or loneliness? Maybe you (like Chad) have to watch someone you love struggle and there's not much you can do about it? For someone with a Christian faith, this struggle can be made all the more complicated when you factor in knowledge of God's ability to heal. Those waters can tend to get very murky, very quickly. And I think that's ok. It's just about what we do with that tension.
Whatever "brand" of struggle yours may be, here are some places I've landed in trying to grapple with my pain and my faith:
Chronic pain is a fact about me (currently). It does not get to define my life. I have chronic pain. I also am married. I am a female. I am caucasian. I think I'm pretty funny. I like to cook. I don't like cleaning my floors. Each of those facts mean something about me and set some perimeters in my life but they don't give a full snap-shot of who I am. Losing sight of this central truth makes me chronic-pain "centric." And there are so many better things to be at the center of my life than chronic-pain.
My pain level is not the measure of my day. Have you ever thought, "I felt good today so it was a good day"? We have to fight against this because it's a very easy trap to fall into. But the truth is that there are so many other choices to be the gauge of how each day is measured: obedience, provision, laughter, faithfulness, puppy snuggles, a very funny tv show that distracts you for a while. We have to be diligent to not be so reductionistic to say, "my pain was really low so it was a good day." If we let it be as simple as "low pain = good day; high pain = bad day" then our eyes are fixed on ourselves alone. As Christians, we know there's a better choice for us to fix our eyes on.
How God answers your prayers for healing does not say anything about you. Or at least it doesn't say what you think it says. I firmly believe that chronic pain is more of a result of the Fall than it is a result human choices. Sure...maybe your hard labor caused some degenerative disc issues. But still..that is rooted in the fall because hard work is not sinful, but deterioration of our bodies is the result of the Fall. Your issue may actually be the result of your choices (lifestyle issues, positive or negative...doesn't matter really), but the toll it has taken on your body is largely a result of the Fall. What I mean by that is that when sin entered the world through Adam, destruction of our bodies came, too (and this has physical, emotional, mental implications). Before then, there was no deterioration. This is a MUCH bigger issue than your sin or your choices and this issue manifests itself in a myriad of different ways. I throw disease and illness in this same category (and flooding and hurricanes, if anybody is wondering). The world is broken by sin, so bad things happen. And they don't really mean anything about us. So the same is true for our rescue from the physical manifestations of the Fall. If it didn't mean anything about us that we received this illness, then it doesn't mean anything about us if the healing comes. It would be awesome if healing comes. But it isn't personal if it doesn't. And it's not personal if it does. It wouldn't be about your good deeds or track record if you get healed; how much potential you have or how much God likes you.It just means something about God. It's God's choice how he wants your healing story to go. And he alone gets to make that call of when your healing is manifested. It's not personal. It's just the Fall.
I don't know the rules about who gets ailments or who gets healed. Honestly, it looks pretty haphazard to me. There is no magic formula that I've ever been able to pick out. But I'll tell you this: at our house, we ask for healing anyway.What's true is that our struggles aren't meant to define us or take the central seat in our life. And God's (apparent) response to our struggles isn't a good indicator of his awareness of our pain.
I love this poem by Walt Whitman which ends with this thoughtful line:
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
I, for one, don't want my "verse" to be, "Pain overtook my life." But rather, "I found joy and meaning and purpose in the midst of the lot that I was given."
If you or someone you love struggles with a chronic issue, you can contact me here to set up a time to come in and talk about it.
Counseling offices in Walker, Louisiana and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Photo credit goes to Brigitte Tohm.