Of Pain

I was able to leave the house early the other day. I wore some awesome new red corduroy pants, so my day was inevitably going very agreeably. I went to Panera to pick up my favorite tea and a sweet snack that I can afford due to my job, and then I drove to work in a car. A car that was lent to me freely.

I stopped at a light and noticed a man holding a sign. The sign said that his wife had cancer, and that he needed work. He was an older man, but not an old man yet. He had whispy graying hair and wore a faded shirt. The light turned green, but I pulled out some money and gave it to him. "I hope you find a job," I said, and I looked him straight in his weary blue eyes, and I saw him.

He was afraid, there was shame to be out like this, and he knew he was grasping at straws, but he had to do something. His wife was dying and he was scared, is what his eyes told me. He was desperate. He didn't know what to do. 

This is the part in this little entry where I'm supposed to talk about how God is big enough and wise enough and He knows what He's doing, and truly He does and He is, but sometimes it doesn't help to say so because that doesn't dissipate excruciating pain, though we act like it should. And I think we do this because we suspect that if we struggle in our pain; it means that God is not all-powerful. That he's not strong enough to overcome every struggle if it's not conquered immediately and fully.

And the thing is, you can't expel pain only by reminding someone or yourself that He is enough. You have to grapple with Him until He becomes more real than the pain. Like Jacob. Our struggle leaves us with a limp, but we are whole in our brokenness. It's out of that experience of having your existence shaken, then put back together by an indefatigable God that you are able to have something worthwhile to say to others.

Ironically, I had nothing I could say to that man. I wish I could have thought of something that didn't sound trite or simple. Maybe he was blessed and knew that he wasn't alone in his pain and that someone cared. Maybe that's the gift amid the pain - that it enables you to love others well, and in doing so to lighten their own burdens. Maybe pain galvanizes love. And maybe that's where the miracle is.