Presence in the Pain
Pain.
It has a way of finding us all.
Sometimes it’s a nagging discomfort that follows you through the day.
Sometimes it’s the kind that stops you in your tracks and takes your breath away.
It might be your body.
Or your heart.
Or your soul.
Or the people you love.
However it arrives—and however long it stays—pain has a way of shrinking our world. It tests our patience, clouds our thinking, and makes even ordinary tasks feel difficult.
And when someone we love is the one hurting?
Well, that's a different kind of pain altogether.
How is it that the pain of someone you love can have such purchase on your life?
They’re the one hurting.
And somehow you're carrying a pain that isn't even yours.
Our daughter, Mallory, recently went through another orthopedic surgery.
It was painful.
As parents, Amy and I found ourselves doing what parents have always done when their children are hurting: wishing we could somehow make it better.
And I say this knowing many of you have felt the same.
If we could have taken her place and done the suffering for her, we would have.
Without hesitation.
But we couldn't.
What Amy and I could do was be with her.
With her in it.
With her to breathe.
With her to comfort.
With her so she knew she wasn't alone.
The early Christian writer Origen once asked, “Who among those who have read the Gospels does not know that Christ makes all human suffering his own?”
That's one of the things people noticed about Jesus.
He didn't stand at a distance from suffering.
He moved toward the grieving and the sick.
Toward the hurting and the afraid.
Again and again, Jesus chose presence.
Presence in the pain.
Perhaps that's the invitation suffering offers us as well—not to have all the answers, to explain away the pain, or to fix what cannot be fixed.
But simply to be present.
Sometimes that looks like sitting beside a hospital bed. Sometimes it's making the phone call, sending the text, bringing the meal, listening, or simply staying.
I've come to believe that people can get through just about anything when they know they don't have to get through it alone.
We couldn't take away Mallory's pain.
But we could stay.
And sometimes love looks a lot like that.
Not fixing.
Not explaining.
Just staying.
Even when you can't take the pain away.
Much love,
Pastor Gregg
