Do I Understand My Pain?

In my previous writing, titled “God is Eager to Display His Work,” I used the story of Jesus healing the man born blind to explore the idea that the pain I often try to medicate with food and pornography could serve a greater purpose: to display God’s work as He heals me. And that healing may be closer than I think.

In this piece, I want to explore the possibility that I may not perceive my pain as clearly as the blind man understood his. The blind man knew exactly what his problem was—his blindness. Before Jesus came, he wasn’t wandering around upset that someone had neglected to turn the lights on. He understood the source of his pain.

In my case, much of my pain comes from past trauma, unwise decisions made by my children, challenges at work, and sometimes even the frustrations of home maintenance and loud noises. I often pray for God to help me forget my traumas, to guide my children to better choices, for work problems to be resolved quickly, for my house to hold together, and that my neighbor’s dogs will just - stop - barking! But I realize now that I’ve been praying wrong.

You see, I’ve been assuming that I simply am the way that I am - like how I believe loud noises will always bother me. But as I read about the healing of the blind man, it struck me: the problem isn’t the noise. The problem is how the noise affects me. And I could pray for healing from that.

Christ couldn’t have "turned the lights on" for the blind man if the man had seen his pain that way. In the same way, it might not be in God’s plan to change the hard things from my past, to fix my children, to make work easier, to hold my house together, or even to quiet my neighbor’s dogs.

As I reflected on the idea that I may not be seeing my pain accurately, I envisioned what life would look like if the real issues were fixed. Here’s what the vision entailed: A difficult memory surfaced, and I acknowledged it, let it go, and moved on. I was assigned a difficult work task with a deadline and got right to work on the interesting challenge. One of our three showers sprang a leak and I calmly turned off the water and added the repair to my to-do list. My child made a poor decision and I responded with love and guidance, without catastrophizing, forming an unhealthy attachment to the outcome, or taking it as a reflection on myself. An intentionally unmuffled car woke me up and I turned over and went back to sleep.

This sparked a new hope in me—that I could be changed. The world could stay as it is, but I could live in it without the negative effects it currently has on me. And why should it have that kind of power over me anyway? God may need me to work at it or even seek professional help, but I believe He is powerful and good enough to make that change in me.

In short, the real issue isn’t events themselves—it’s my negative reaction to them. What I need healing from is the hurt, not the causes of it.

This perspective can change how I pray. Instead of asking for events to change to suit me, I can now pray to be healed from my unhealthy reactions to these events.

I’m going to give it a try!

By Ty, Writing Team