”Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” - Westley from The Princess Bride
I watched this movie on VHS in high school so many times that I could literally quote the movie in its entirety. But I‘m not sure I ever really thought much about this line until recently. And now I realize just how wise the ‘ole farm boy Westley truly was.
There is so much pain in life, and yet it is as though the world continues to try to sell the idea that comfort at any cost and avoiding pain is the ultimate goal. Interesting, isn’t it? How we spend our lives running from and avoiding any kind of pain at all costs? Physical, mental, emotional. We spend a lifetime fighting to be happy and searching for the thing or things that will fill a void in our lives. And when extraordinary pain finds us, we tend to run the other direction to find something that can make us feel any little bit better. And I wonder, for those of us who follow Jesus, how detached we must seem from the Gospel when we react in this way. When our first response is to dull or numb the pain at all costs instead of running to the one who redeems and heals our pain. The only one who gives a hope to find beauty in the excruciating pain of loss or heartache. What message are we sending when we curse our circumstance that seems unrepairable, or utter despair over a loss that seems to great to bear? We must grieve, yes. But when grieving morphs into an addiction or unhealthy pattern aiming to escape the pain of grieving then we have gone too far. Turned the wrong way. Succumbed to the temptation of filling a craving for comfort with everything except the one source that truly can offer comfort. Jesus. Is it possible that God created us with this craving for comfort, but that the only true comfort is in him? We all crave it and struggle to not go to extreme circumstances to obtain it in whatever way we seem to think will fulfill it. And yet, maybe within the common, human craving of comfort lies a solution that we tend to often consider a last resort.
I mean, let’s consider 2 Corinthians 1:3-7:
“[3] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. [5] For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. [6] If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. [7] Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”
I know pain and loss and heartache. I have known it in the deepest of places. I have also experienced Jesus redeeming the pain and transforming it and me in ways I could have never thought possible. This is the power of the Gospel. And this is the power and love and grace of Jesus.
I often go running, admittedly more for my mental health than physical. It is therapy for me in a way. But also a way I often connect with Jesus in being able to reflect and hear in unique ways. The other day I woke up extra early to run. I prefer to run in the mornings when it is cooler so getting up early is motivating for me. Also, the city streets are quieter in the 6 am hour than later in the day. Looking forward to the cool and quiet, I headed out with my airpods in and new compression sleeves on because #runningat39. Also, where have those been all my running life?! Total game changer for preventing shin splints… Worship music playing in my ears, I felt it was going to be a great serene run. But I left and didn’t even make it around the corner from our house before I heard the sirens coming. It wasn’t that they startled me or seemed out of the ordinary. They are a typical sound here in the city. But it isn’t often that I am on the side of the road while an ambulance drives by that close with the sirens on. I could still hear the music as the sirens got louder the closer they got. But the closer they got I could hardly hear the music playing directly into my ears because the sirens were just that loud. Obnoxiously loud, I thought. Painfully loud. It came and then went, the sirens fading into the distance. I kept running and I could hear my music once again loud and clear, but I couldn’t help realize the picture it gave me.
Often in our unique situation I have said it feels like we never leave the hospital. The care and skilled nursing tasks we complete throughout the day on a daily basis are things that only an actual nurse would be allowed to do in the hospital. But it has become our norm. 24hrs a day 7 days a week of medical devices, machines, medical equipment and supplies. The pharmacy knows us by name. And I think most people believe that it is just our life and we must be used to it. That we just have to deal with it. And we do but… it does feel a lot of times like we are living at the hospital. But when things escalate and something isn’t right and we actually do have to have our daughter admitted to the hospital, it is a whole new level of stress and trauma. So I was thinking when I was running that day that I have to fight extra hard to look to Jesus and hope in him because often it is a daily battle of my mind to not feel weary. To not wish things to be different. But so often the sirens are so loud in my mind and in my life that while I know Jesus is still there, and the music is still playing, it is difficult to not succumb to just paying attention to the sirens because they are so dang loud. Painfully loud. But the sirens are not for forever. Eventually they will drive into the distance. To comfort myself from the literal sirens that day I could have tried covering my ears, running in the opposite direction, or just turning around and going back into my house until they pass, to avoid them altogether. Instead, I chose to keep running and strain and fight to still hear the worship in my ears, as it was no longer the easiest thing to focus on anymore. I think this could be a picture of how Jesus wants us to respond in life’s sirens so to speak. It is a way he disciplines us to draw closer to him instead of covering our ears or running away. I mean, if we truly believe and trust what It says in 2 Corinthians, “he who comforts us in all our afflictions,” then why do we continually turn to other ways to attempt to mask or numb the pain? Other ways may seem to help in the short term, but I am convinced that Jesus has something much greater for us in trusting him through the pain than attempting to eat or drink or Netflix binge our feelings away. I believe there is something deeper and more profound to be had in the healing of Jesus that looks much different than we think it should. Maybe the healing you are asking for doesn’t come in the package you expect it to. Maybe, just maybe Paul knew what he was saying when he wrote a letter in the living Word of God to tell us that the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) Do we really believe that the power of Jesus is made perfect in our weakness?!?! In Ephesians 1 Paul says in verses 18-21 that he prays for the believers that they would be “enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead…” This ‘hope’ to which God has called us to apparently involves us also knowing that the same power that God used when he raised Jesus from the dead, is the same power that has immeasurable greatness to those of us who believe. That is some serious power don’t you think?! And, if we are able to have faith that the Word of God is true and read it for what it is, and if we really believed that God uses the same power with us, then do we not think that he has the ability to transform our pain and redeem our suffering? Shouldn’t we be so bold as to believe that even in our darkest moments there is work being done, and that his power is bigger than any heartache or loss here on this earth? It isn’t really a question of if there is work being done. Or if he is bringing beauty from our pain. It is a matter of our willingness to look for it. If we are focused on the dark we are not going to see the light. We have to choose to look for it. To focus on it.
The healing doesn’t always come in the way we expect it to. And asking for healing doesnt guarantee that our own expectations for the avenue in which it comes through will come to pass. If we are going to pray in total surrender and faith that God truly is sovereign and is healer, and redeemer then we have to remain open to the ways he sees fit for us to receive it. Sometimes in letting go of our own expectations, we receive so much more than we could have imagined. Immeasurably more.
Life is pain, as Westley said. (Also, I did not know until writing this that his name was spelled with a ‘t’ in the middle - who knew?!) I think by beginning to look for Jesus in the pain instead of trying to mask it we will be
amazed at the ways we experience his power in the midst of it all. Instead of being consumed with anger in feeling an injustice with our pain, we could choose to cling to the one hope that has the power to transform it. Jesus, our Redeemer.
Ephesians 3:20-21 “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Amen.
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