“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” –C.S. Lewis
There’s a terrible disease we’ve all heard of, but perhaps don’t truly know about. It’s a bacterial disease of the nervous system. A disease known as Leprosy.
The first thought that comes to my mind, is this flesh-rotting kind of imagery, but the reality is quite the contrary. In fact, a lepers flesh is just as healthy as yours or mine, the only difference is that they lack the ability to feel pain. Leprosy breaks down the nervous system within the body, deadening their nerve endings, and ultimately their ability to sense danger or harm to their bodies. Leprous people live a virtually pain-free existence.
That doesn’t sound so bad, huh?! I think many of us would do anything to live a pain-free life. Yet for the leper, the absence of pain is his greatest enemy when he can’t feel the piercing of its arrival.
We live in a crazy world that has an unbelievable gift at doing or using whatever it takes to shut down pain in our lives. Did you know that people in North America consume over thirty thousand TONS of aspirin a year? While we make up 5% of the world’s population, we are the ones consuming over 50% of all the manufactured drugs, one-third of which work on the central nervous system alone. We are the most advanced society in the world, at suppressing our pain –numbing what hurts, so we can feel no longer. The danger is, when we refuse to listen to our bodies, we ultimately risk destroying them.
I realize most of this content is speaking of physical pain, but let your mind move from that place alone, to the emotional and spiritual side.
In the same manner as one would suppress pain in the physical, we do so emotionally… All. The. Time.
and I understand why… Who likes being hurt, and feeling weak and vulnerable?! It’s probably not on the top of your to-do list.
But here’s the problem with that… Here’s the great danger in pain suppression::
Just as lepers lack the ability to listen to their body and to feel pain, they experiences the great danger of harming themselves and never knowing it,
WE as a people, suppressing pain with all our might – greatly risk an internal breakdown of the heart and spirit, and will never know it. We spend all of our energy, resources and time on trying to do all we can to numb and silence the greatest indicator that tells us that something within, greatly needs our attention.
C.S. Lewis said with such truth; “Pain insist upon being attended to” and without our attention to it, we risk living a life without warning.
Pain is necessary thing, because without it, we wouldn’t realize what we needed most.
Without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need for peace when the waves of circumstance come crashing in on us from every side.
Without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need to be found when all feels lost and unseen.
Without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need for hope when the odds stack so highly against us that nothing seems possible anymore.
Without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need for love, the unconditional kind that knows no limits, or boundaries, and has no desire to keep records of wrong doing.
Namely, without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need for a savior, our need for His nearness and our desperate need for His daily activity in our lives and hearts.
What I’m realizing is that pain is not an enemy to be suppressed; rather, pain is a weapon against a numb existence and if seen with the right perspective, can be a valuable tool in identifying the places we need restoration and healing, as opposed to a crippling blow that paralyzes.
I think our society has things backwards. We seem to believe that the people in pain are the ones that need help. Surely they need some form of pain-killer to suppress and numb out the bad. But now… now I’m beginning to realize that the ones who don’t feel pain, are in fact the ones that need the most help.
Pain is a necessary thing, because it reminds us that we’re weak, human, and in great need – every single day – of a gracious and loving God who desires to carry every weight, heal aching hurt, and redeem our hearts to Him.
So instead of running from pain and suppressing it with whatever seems fitting, let’s look at it square in the face and ask why it’s present, why “this” is painful, and listen for its response. Listen to its warning that shouts of the places we need to attend to. Listen to why it’s taken up residence in our heart and mind, so we can identify that place of pain and turn into our place of need. Our great and continual need of a rescuing God.
Matthew 5:3
“Blessed are those who know their need of God, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
