Finding joy in suffering

Reading time around 5 minutes.

In the mid 2000s there was a popular music video trend where the singer would be standing still while the crowd was blurred and in motion. While the world was busy rushing around and doing what it always does, there was the main character reflecting upon their internal emotions, wondering who could possibly care.

During a conversation with my husband or in the midst of a house party with friends, I am standing still while everyone is blurred.

In the middle of a sentence, my voice stops and the receiver waits for the sentence to end but the thought is gone. In the thought’s place is a sudden spike in the constant pain of the past six weeks.

I suspect without diagnosis what might be happening. But after having so many blood draws and tests, I do not know for sure. My heart is fine and I’ve tested negative for things like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, vitamin deficiencies, and on the list goes. I believe this is nerve pain based on my own research and experiences. But again I do not know.

Describing my pain is like keeping water in a cup you create with two hands. It’s like rubbing against Stinging Nettle. It’s an aching, burning, or pins and needles feeling that can be isolated or everywhere inside my body. It feels like all of these or nothing close to them. How can I describe my symptoms when I can barely find words for them?

Doctors want their patients to have symptoms like an exam question from medical school but my symptoms don’t seem to fit in the box. I had a chiropractor who joked a professor once said on the last day of medical school, “When you’re out in the world, remember that patients have the right to to have as many conditions as they please at the same time.”

A month and a half ago I went to the ER three times and even stayed in the hospital for a few days for testing. They sent me home without answers. I won’t be able to see a neurologist until November. I fear all this waiting will lead me to hear another voice ask if this is anxiety, which has become a question I associate with negligence. I feel my jaw clench wondering how I might have to fight for myself, which sounds exhausting.

Considering the fact I’m in constant pain you would think that it would qualify as an emergency health issue. What makes it less than? What makes me less worthy for care?

Sometimes I stare at my hands when I am washing them and wonder why I can’t see hives or injuries when they hurt as much as they do. I wonder why there are times I want to scream and curl into a ball but I have to smile to my cashier at the grocery store.

I want to be cordial and non threatening. I want to appease everyone. I want to stop talking about something that is all consuming.

You’re a bad mom for taking a medication that makes you sleepy. You’re letting people down when you can’t carry out commitments. You’re letting your irritability hurt your relationships.

These are the lies that try to take me away from the hope I carry with me.

Lately I have been thinking about the story in the Bible where a woman suffers from a bleeding condition for twelve years. Twelve years she is isolated by people and considered unclean, which means she can’t even go to the temple to hear the word of God.

Twelve years she must take care of herself and find a way to survive in a world that is still moving without her. She goes from doctor to doctor; they abuse her and take her money without healing.

On the way to heal a girl who was dying, Jesus is surrounded by a crowd of people. Somehow this woman pushes through and touches his garment. She is healed, not because his clothing was holy, but because she had the faith she would be healed.

Consider too that this girl who dies is raised by Jesus. She is twelve years of age. Imagine twelve years of equal time in which one woman suffers and one child is born to die but both are healed and reborn in faith from Jesus.

Many of the people who are either healed or who suffer in the Gospels ask Jesus: why does God allow suffering? The answer is to proclaim the goodness of God for a time such as this.

This is an answer people frown at. What a cruel God! But what is more cruel? Allowing suffering or not providing a way to create love despite suffering? I’ll save my discussion of free will and grace for another time…

Does that not make sense to you? I tell you with honesty that until I believed in Jesus I did not see how suffering could be for good. I did not understand how I could have joy in my pain, mental and physical, until I saw how Christ bearing my pain was a comfort in my isolation. For sin brought him to death but Jesus overcame sin. So too does he raise me from the ashes of my sin.

I have felt true joy and peace in moments my life was falling apart. It always surprises me and makes me see how much I can endure and help others endure.

I stopped praying for my pain to go away a couple weeks ago. I gladly let others pray that for me. I believe that God can take it away but now I pray for peace in all my circumstances.

No amount of physical pain now can separate me from the love of Christ. My life before knowing Him was agony without hope. Now I have light that penetrates any darkness.