On Pain

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes

Revelation 21:4

As I sit here, at the end of the day, thumbing through some verses of Scripture and trying to make sense of it all, my mind is clouded by the intense throbbing at the side of my mouth. It is a troublesome toothache that will not let me focus and I dread the hours ahead when I will toss and turn and wonder why I did not get some Ibuprofen before returning home. Even as my mind wonders, I remember Jessie*, and what she said to me a few hours before.

As I was coming near the end of my evening shift I went in to see Jessie, a fiery 70-something year old on our ward. The metalwork which replaced her left hip eight years ago is slowly boring a hole into her pelvis and is causing her the most excruciating pain. As I spoke with her she held my gaze, her piercing eyes drilling their way straight through my skull. “If I were a dog”, she intoned, her voice quivering as she tried hard to control it, “If I were a dog, you would put me down! Doctor, did you hear me? That’s how I feel.” It was hard not to feel sorry for her. And the aching of my tooth is probably nothing compared to the agony she has been going through for the better part of a month, day-in, day-out.

Pain is an all too present part of our everyday lives isn’t it? From the annoying ache of a stubbed toe to the sharp and grinding tenderness of a metastatic bone lesion and the dolour that goes with it, we are never too far from a little bit of pain. And, perhaps, it is one of the most enduring Whys of our existence: “Why would God create a world with so much pain?” Most mysterious of all, he has allowed that human’s favourite gift – the gift of childbirth – would not come without this most unwelcome of accompaniments. And then there are the less corporeal and yet more oppressive emotional stressors – the pain of separation and of loss and of death.

As I pore over Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 1:4, I get the sense that he too was going through an ordeal – the sense of separation from and longing for his long-time friend and son, knowing that indeed the words he was writing might well turn out to be their last communication and that they may never again see each other this side of eternity. His long incarceration was not helping matters and every day that passed the pain of separation gets worse. But even through the tears he spoke to the young man’s heart these immortal words: “... I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.” (2 Tim 1:9)

The great encouragement for the believer is that a Day is coming when “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

With love, Doosuur

*Not her real name