Life Comes Out of Pain

“Abba, Father… when I bring broken things to You, don’t You heal? But why at times do You hold the broken things in Your hands -still broken? Why when I hand You the broken things, do You carry all the pieces, yet do nothing to put them back together?”

I ask this question one morning, heart aching, hurt rising.

“I know some pain isn’t meant to necessarily go away…” I try again, “But what is it for?”

The question echoes deep in the chambers of my heart.

What of the pain of seeing brokenness and not being able to do anything about it? What of the pain of seeing the broken people and circumstances God cares about and knowing that unless He works impossible miracles, nothing good can come out of brokenness?

Sometimes, there are unnamed pains and brokenness deep within that are too deep to even describe with words. Grief that rises when least expected, grief of ongoing suffering of the silent kind.

And I wonder… does God have a purpose in that kind of pain?

I look around and feel that many overlook this kind of pain, many expect a suffering one to somehow act as though the hurt isn’t there, to celebrate when indeed they need to mourn.

Mourning… isn’t there a place for that in the body of Christ? Often, we mourn in silence or try to burry our pain because we don’t know that we can mourn. But wasn’t Jesus Himself a Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief? (Isaiah 53)

When we burry our pain, aren’t we saying in the very act that God doesn’t care?

But really, what if pain has a purpose?

//

“How heal when the broken is still broken? How heal when every time I brush against brokenness my heart bleeds again?” I ask again, wondering.

Are we invincible- we who follow Jesus? I think we have a mindset that we should be in every way -emotionally, physically, and most definitely spiritually- invincible.

But what if in the battle, we get wounded? Does it mean we’ve been disqualified? What if, in mounting the great warhorse, we fall off and find ourselves disoriented? Does it mean we can no longer stand with our invincible King?

Is healing really the goal -or is it learning how to bleed like Jesus?

Is healing the point -or is it learning to let the pain chisel away at the parts of me that don’t look like Him?

What if pain is His fire, burning away dross?

What if pain is a death out of which new life is born?

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone;” Jesus said, revealing the Kingdom pattern He was about to be the first to walk in. “But if it dies,” He continued, “It produces much grain.” (John 12:24)

Out of death… comes life? Didn’t Jesus reveal this in the very footsteps He chose to walk?

//

Stay, my soul. Don’t let yourself grow numb. The fact that you feel -and feel it deep- means you’re coming to life again. Don’t fight it. He’s burning away the ugly with that pain. He’s making more room for Himself to take over.

That pain you so deeply want to fight… is a gift.

So, receive it with thanksgiving. Stay pained, but in faith, knowing that He -your Healer- means to do a deeper healing, a healing of the real brokenness inside -that brokenness that is the old you tangled up in sin holding the new you at bay. That brokenness that keeps you from living free.

Pain is His tool. He’s working, my soul.

//

I ponder more, remembering the clay in the potter’s hands.

Crushed clay, marred clay… earthen vessels.

My daughter comes out of her Sunday School class holding a little cup that represented the clay jars in Gideon’s army. She throws it on the floor then holds up a light.

I ponder the crushing that’s going on inside. Perhaps pain is meant to let more light through? Her little cup bounces on the floor, but the clay jars? They shattered.

Shattering… Isn’t it true that the shattering of the temporary makes way for the eternal? The shattering of temporary comfort, the uncomfortable fire that burns within, is burning away that which hides His face from being clearly seen in the soul…

My heart burns- glows- with the fire of the great Goldsmith, burning hot fire, bringing dross to the surface I never knew was there.

I look at the pain around me and realize it’s a mirror reflecting the pain within. It makes me see the ugly in me more clearly -the ugly that Jesus already freed me from, but I haven’t learned to live free from, and I lift up my eyes.

“Jesus,” I breathe, “teach me to walk in the freedom for which You set me free.”

//

I glance down at my phone. A text message from my husband is on the screen. It’s a quote by Oswald Chambers.

“To those who have no agony Jesus says, ‘I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.’”

That’s it. The burden that pains you reveals your need. The burden that crushes you convinces you there is no hope apart from Christ.

“It is God who arms me with strength,” said the psalmist. (Psalm 18:32a)

Earlier in the same psalm he had found that God answers when he calls to Him in his distress. (Psalm 18:6) Something about the distressed cry of God’s child moved Him to the point that heaven and earth were shaken. (vs 7-15)

Something about desperation, pain and need causes us to reach out for help.

My son reaches out his arms when he needs me, and when I lift him, he holds on tight, his grip strong. He lays his head on my shoulder, expressing in the very act that here he feels safe. He trusts me.

I see my Father reaching out to me in my ache, and I find I have a choice. Will I be like my son? Will I open my arms and let Him lift me? Will I hold on tight with my little child-grip? Will I rest and not fight for control?

Pain brings an end to self-effort, to self-reliance, to self-sufficiency, and teaches me to live as His child again.

So, with childlikeness, I lift up my arms, I receive His embrace, I cling tight, and I dare to hope. Pain is not the end of the story.

My God is working in the pain to bring new life that I can’t see right now. He is shattering my temporary ideas of how life works so that I can learn dependence, He is teaching me that in Him is life, and His life is the light of men. (John 1:4) He is revealing to me that my weakness, the pain that weighs me down, the pressures that crush, the challenges that hurt deep work death of the temporary in me so life can be multiplied through me. (2 Corinthians 4)

“Yet I still dare to hope, when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.” (Lam. 3:21-23)