Belittling Your Pain

I have a friend who often compares her current pain or troubles to the woman in Africa who is watching her child starve to death. The logic is “Well my pain is not as bad as her pain, so why am I complaining so much?” Her counselor’s response to this repeating pattern has been “Are we back in Africa again?” Why do we do this? Why do we belittle our pain? I am guilty of the same thing a thousand times over.

As with many things, there is a small nugget of truth there. My life is immensely better than so many people around me. I am exceedingly blessed in countless ways. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been hurt or I don’t feel pain. Just because my pain is of a different nature than the woman in Africa, doesn’t mean my heart is not assaulted and broken on a regular basis. So the logic alone, carried out, would give me enough reason to call my pain legitimate. So why do we belittle it then?

Perhaps it’s because then we don’t have to deal with it. Minimizing things can be a very effective short term coping mechanism. Of course things tend to pile up and there will eventually be a great explosion or melt down depending on your personality.

Perhaps we belittle our pain because we think it's godly or the Christian thing to do. I have often confused martyrdom and being called to sacrifice. My mom was a martyr and I hated it as a kid. It looked so noble to the world, but I knew as a child who always felt missed and ignored, it was just her way of making everything about herself and not me. I was pushed upfront, but the martyr role gave her the glory and honor. Honestly, I would have been fine to give her the glory if I had felt it was really about me and not just about her living vicariously through me. Perhaps this is why I struggle with and am very sensitive to feeling used even today.

But back to pain.

Recently I was talking to a high school senior who is new to Jesus and is waking up to the ways he has been controlling his life. He has had a tough upbringing and to be honest he has had to fend for himself quite a bit and is no stranger to pain. But recently he was convicted by a Christmas message that challenged us to examine where we are being self-reliant. All of a sudden he could see it all over his life. But as we talked about it, I was struck with my own self-reliant tendencies as well. At one point he just yelled out, “I just don’t like pain!” It was so beautifully honest. Who does like pain?

As a child, I felt like I was very much on my own as well. I built forts to find safety and really, really liked being in charge. (My brother says I was bossy. . . or a pain in the ass, pick one) But I wanted to be in control because then I could protect myself or perhaps minimize the amount of pain in my life. But what has become clear to me as an adult, is that control is only an illusion. Self-reliant people are just people who live at a distance from others and accept a smaller portion of life. I know because I’ve been one of them most of my life. I built forts as a kid and I’ve built huge castle walls around my heart as an adult. But what protects you also cuts you off from what you need. Love.

As children, it was probably a good idea to be self-reliant. It may have even been necessary for your survival. That’s not your fault. We have laws in place to protect children because as a society we don’t expect them to be able to protect themselves. The problem for many of us though, is that we keep our childhood friend of self-reliance and he is like a crazy watch dog that runs everyone off that might be able to help us or even love us. We may feel a measure of safety at the end of the day, but at what cost?

I’ve used all these techniques and I am sure I still do. Minimize or belittle the pain. Just be thankful and the pain will melt away or become smaller. Take control, and bend the pain to play by your rules. Get back into the castle and live behind the wall so the pain can’t find you. Sadly, none of it works long term. I wish it did, but it doesn’t.

There is a saying in counseling that we make progress in our healing by walking through thresh-holds of fear. I dislike that very much, but have found it to be true in so many people’s stories. The thing you fear the most seems to be the place you end up and then Jesus shows up big.

My first child was born on her due date. Only 4% of kids are born on their due dates. But she was right on time which meant my water broke while I was sitting in church. The pastor bowed his head to pray and I felt the waterfall begin. As quickly as I could waddle to the bathroom, I headed up the aisle, leaking large amounts of fluid from my bottom area all the way.

Initially it was funny. I laughed and laughed in the bathroom. But then no one came to help me and I got mad. The conversation went like this: “Ok God. Very funny! Public humiliation is not a good time for me, but I’m getting used to it, but now you need to send someone in here to help me!” Every time I moved the waterfall began again. I could not stand up without gushing everywhere. Of course eventually someone came and everything went into high gear.

This was my first child so there was no template, but something didn’t seem quite right. I was leaking, and it smelled terrible, but I was not going into labor. So once we arrived at the hospital, I really just had to wait for my body to kick in. But it never did.

I had only asked the Lord for one thing when I was pregnant. No needles. Do not make this a needle fest. I had had some bad surgeries as a kid and they scarred me on many levels and all that fear went into needles. I’m not sure what a panic attack is but I am pretty sure I was in the ballpark anytime I was around needles.

So when the doctor finally decided we could wait no longer for fear of infection, it was time for all the needles. I remember crying not just out of fear, but also feeling so abandoned by the Lord. “This is all I asked for Lord; just this one thing.” He knew how afraid I was. Why would He let this happen? I was devastated.

So I was induced and it was a very long and difficult, 10-hour labor that I don’t even know how I got through. Afterwards, I felt like I had been hit by a bus. (This is not everyone’s experience when they are induced. Some women love it.) But as much as my body hurt, my heart hurt more. My God had forsaken me and left me at the threshold of my fear. But I walked through it and was rewarded with something amazing; Sarah. I honestly don’t know if I would have ever been able to even take a step in this area if the reward would have been anything less.

When it was time for my second child to be born, we were right back in the same place. I got to skip the water breaking in church part of the evening, but I had to be induced again because she just would not work with the program. This time I was in labor for 4 hours and making no progress. God spoke to me right there and asked me to take the next step in this area of fear and get an epideral. That is the biggest, scariest needle they have besides EMT heart needles. They put the epideral needle right in your spine and tell you not to move. But I remember the release of fear at that moment. It was a step of faith and trust for me that my God knew what He was doing even if it scared the crap out of me. My reward, Rachel, was born less than 25 minutes later. I vomited a lot and couldn’t stand up straight for a few days, but the fear of needles was gone.

During my pregnancy with David, I would occasionally have moments of panic because I just didn’t want another baby forced out of me like the girls were. For me, being induced was man’s rendition of labor and it got the job done, but in a seemingly crude way. We had always talked about having 4 kids, but I was confident that if this labor wasn’t different, there would be no number 4.

I made some changes on my end. I found a CNM to be my primary caregiver. They gave me more options for labor. I used every wives tale home remedy to try and induce labor. One week after David was due, he was still swimming around in there and we were running out of food in the house waiting for him to arrive. So I went big shopping. It was quite a sight! I was a very big pregnant woman pushing a very large and very full grocery cart. I took a friend just in case we got to repeat the water breaking in public portion again. At one point I came around a corner and the woman in front of me gasped out loud and asked if I was ok. I like to think of it as the equivalent of the marathon I will never actually run in this lifetime. And it worked.

I went into labor that night and got through the entire thing without any needles at all. This experience was so profoundly different from the man made version of labor. I actually fell asleep between contractions because I was so tired and spent, but also so peaceful and at rest. I know that pain in childbirth was part of the curse, but it still has the kindness of God associated with it. The man made version was harsh and demanding for me. But God’s version was painful and yet kind somehow all at the same time. I was thanking God for our 4th child, John, even while I was being cleaned up from the labor of my 3rd child, David.

By the time John rolled around, I ended up having a C-section because he was just a butterball doing gymnastics in my belly. He came out at 10 lbs. 13 ozs so I was fine to not deliver him the old fashioned way. But the surgery did not traumatize me at all. God had broken a stronghold in my life and in the meantime given me 4 beautiful and amazing children.

Before John was born, Rachel was hospitalized at the age of almost 3 with mysterious vomiting and dehydration issues while we were in CO for the summer. It was a very scary time for both Joel and I. The ER staff had to work very hard to get a needle into her due to the dehydration. As hard as it was to get through those 3 days of a delirious, gaunt child who didn’t know who I was, I can’t imagine how I would have made it with my previous fear of needles and hospitals. God had seen our future and helped me with my own fears so I could be there for my own child in her fear. I consider that a great blessing looking back and a kindness from God even though I did not understand what he was doing at the time.

God’s goals are not our goals. His ways are not our ways. Often, I just want to minimize the pain. I’ve spent my whole life wanting to minimize the pain through my arsenal of weapons. But life hurts. There is no way to stop that train. I have often believed the idea that if God is good then bad things should not happen to me. So if bad things happen, then God is not good. Logic. But you could also say if God is good then we should not die. But we know everyone dies. No one escapes death. Jesus died. But He beat death and rose again. This is God’s pattern. He doesn’t take away death; He overcomes it. God does not always take away pain and fear; He overcomes it.

But at the end of the day all I really want is just less pain. God, however, wants me to have freedom from fear. Often freedom is found by way of pain. Any parent will tell you that pain is an excellent teacher. As a parent you are often wrestling with how much pain do you let your children experience? Little kids like to touch things. Its how they learn. They are very tactile. But you have to teach them not to touch the stove or fire. They have to obey and trust you if they are not going to get burned. But some kids will get burned and that is the way they learn. Your entire nervous system is created with this blueprint. That is why we have reactions and fine nerve endings in our extremities. When you feel pain, you move your hand before your head can even process the event. It’s a "built by God" protection mechanism that works when you administer pain to it. Pain has a work to do in us.

But understand that God takes no delight in watching his children suffer. I have struggled to watch my kids get all their many immunization shots over the years. They can be very painful and at certain check ups you need 3 to 4 shots at one time. But I am also very thankful they will never deal with Polio and Measels and Mumps. These are deadly, painful diseases and shots are a small price to pay. But tell that to a 6 month old baby. They look at you like, “Why? Why would you let them do that to me?” It is so sad to watch as a parent. But we have the bigger picture and we ask our children to trust us in those times because the pain being administered is for their ultimate good not harm.

But immunizations are just the beginning of pain for your kids. I’ve homeschooled my kids most of their schooling years, but we knew they would need to make the transition to public school at some point. Our first daughter went into school in 8th grade. It was wonderful and terrible all at the same time. She loved making new friends and then was devastated when they betrayed her. In those moments, you feel so helpless as a parent and you want to go chew someone out or just pull your kid back into your home away from the cruel world, but you can’t or I suppose you can but you shouldn’t. I asked God many times if we could just make it stop but he gave us no green light.

We did what we could to help. She was being bullied on the bus so we just drove her into school for a while. Eventually things changed and she was able to take the bus again. But we were never able to just bring her back home, though my heart really wanted to. She was doing fine with the academics and extra curricular stuff, but the peer relationships were so wounding and sadly, especially other Christian kids.

Watching your kids loose their innocence is so painful as a parent. They believe in people and when they are betrayed they are so hurt. But isn’t that life lesson as important to learn as multiplication? Sarah brought home her pain and new bad words and the sarcasm she used to protect herself and afflicted our family with them. It was miserable. She was hurting and to be honest she hurt us even as we tried to help her in the pain.

I spent a month after her 8th grade year just mourning the loss of my little girl. I didn’t want to spend time with friends and I had trouble not feeling like a total failure as a parent. I was mad at God for what seemed like too much pain being administered to a sweet young girl. I also felt that all the love and care we had spent 12 years pouring into her had been undone and thrown to the curb in one year of public school.

But I look back now and I see a passionate young woman trying to figure it all out while pendulum swinging through it. That would describe my life pretty well too. In my ideal world, I make small gradual changes and slowly work towards the ideal understanding of relationships. Not a chance. In reaity, I swing wildly and pass through the ideal area for a while on my way out. Like driving through a town that is so small I keep missing my turn off and have to drive past it 3 or 4 times before I see the road.

But God is so efficient in his use of pain. He took Sarah’s pain and instructed all of us. My husband and I had to seek God on her behalf and it caused us to look deeper into our own lives and parenting. Our other 3 kids watched and learned from a distance and their transitions have been very different than hers. Not easy, but certainly not as hard.

I was also struck during the process that I don’t know what God has planned for my kids later in life. I don’t know what He is preparing them for and I don’t know the roads he will ask them to walk. I don’t know whom they were created to love and care for over the course of their lives. I don’t even know how long I get to be with them here on earth. I understand that God and I are on a journey together. So it makes sense that my kids are on their own journey with God too and I need to trust Him with their journeys as much as I do my own. (Same principle applies to husbands – believe it or not.)

So pain is either a friend or an enemy. The verses in James about considering it pure joy when you experience trials of various kinds make a bit more sense if we see pain as a friend who has come to do the deeper work. There are plenty of physical analogies all around us. Dental work comes to mind. I’ve had a root canal. It is crazy painful, but an abscessed tooth is off the pain chart. Will we accept pain from the hand of God as a gift from a good God who is working from a bigger picture and knows what lies ahead? Do we believe that He is only doing what He needs to so we can feel loved? Can we accept that He may even be trying to protect us by allowing pain in our lives? Does the presence of pain in our lives mean that God does not love us or perhaps that He does love us?

I am starting to learn that pain, is not the enemy. The enemy is Satan and he tries to use pain to drive us away from God. But the bible is full of stories of God using pain to direct and teach His people and even protect them.

Recently I’ve been very taken in by John 9. Jesus heals the blind man but by the end of the day, the once blind man has also been betrayed by his own parents and the Sanhedrin has called him names and thrown him out into the street. So was that a good day? But what happens next is so beautiful to me. Jesus finds the man at the end of the day. He ministers to him and reveals himself to him and grants him eternal life. But why did he have to spend most of his life in blindness? Why did he have to be disowned by his parents and afflicted by the religious authorities? Where was Jesus when all that was happening?

My child’s heart wants there to be no more sorrow and no more pain. But I am not a child. I know that pain is part of our reality and no one will escape it while here on earth. So the blind man’s story speaks to this idea that pain has a necessary work to do and that God’s goals are not our goals. He works within the reality of pain. Clearly He is able to stop pain. He gave the blind man back his sight. He has the power to intervene. As a parent, often we do as well, but we are aware of the bigger picture and a loving parent will endure the pain of watching their child suffer for a short time and not intervene in hopes that the greater pain will be avoided.

This is what Jesus is doing with the blind man. He allows the pain to play out and then comes to him in the end to offer him the greater treasure of a relationship with Himself. Jesus alone will truly satisfy the man’s deepest desire. I’m sure the blind man spent his whole life assuming that if he could just see, everything would be better. Well that was not true and Jesus showed him that very quickly within just one day’s events. So it is with us. We spend enormous amounts of time trying to figure out what will make us happy and running after it, only to find it does not truly satisfy. Relationships, kids, losing weight, money, respect, honor, security are all enticing words. But they do not satisfy in themselves. Only Jesus will satisfy our deepest longing to be unconditionally loved.

Jesus tells his disciples in John 9 that the man was born blind so that God’s glory might be revealed. So was His glory revealed when the man received his sight or when he worshiped Jesus and came into a relationship with Him and received eternal life? Our earthly focus says when the pain stopped and he was no longer blind. But God’s heavenly perspective says there are worse things than blindness and being healed is only a stop along the road that leads him to Jesus and eternal life with God. But the pain of the process was an important part of the journey as well. All of it was needed to give him what his heart needed the most – a life with Jesus.

So I have experienced a lot of pain. It is different from the woman in Africa and even the person sitting next to me in church. But it is my pain and it hurt and some days it still hurts. There are new pains entering into my life all the time and largely because I try to love the people around me. There is some truth to the idea that if you just stop loving than you may not be hurt as much. Loving others and hoping to be loved are very dangerous places to live if the goal is to minimize the pain.

My mother has Alzhiemers and there is pain with every conversation and every visit. That is only one type of pain in a list of many pains. But can I accept this pain from the hand of a loving God who has my best in mind? Can I believe that the God who healed the blind man can enter into my life at any time and make it all stop if that is what is best for me? When I was younger and had not seen my God do much for me, I could not believe these things. My faith was too weak and my God was too small. But God met me there and cared for me in ways I am only beginning to see now. So maybe now, as I’ve walked with God over time, I can believe those things. But probably only on days that end with y.