At 3:00 AM the pain got to the point where I asked my wife to call an ambulance. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a few days . . . An ongoing and increasing pain in my lower back, right hip and leg necessitated a trip to the local hospital emergency room. Months earlier an MRI had diagnosed moderate spinal stenosis, an impinged nerve, and a bulging disc. I was told it was an age thing, possibly genetics. I told myself that I just needed to work it through. I was managing it with strength exercises and stretching, walking a lot, bike riding, trying to ignore it, and when necessary, pain meds. The pain would not abate. The pain meds were not working. Life was not okay. I tried to go about my daily routine and work through it. It will get better I kept telling myself. It did not.

Dr. Paul Brand was raised as a missionary kid in India and returned as a missionary doctor focusing on alleviating the crippling results of leprosy. In his book co-authored with Philip Yancey; Pain, The Gift Nobody Wants, he writes, “Pain is not the enemy, but the loyal scout announcing the enemy. . . Pain truly is the gift nobody wants. . . On my travels I have observed an ironic law of reversal at work: as a society gains the ability to limit suffering, it loses the ability to cope with what suffering remains. . . The average Indian villager knows suffering well, expects it, and accepts it as an unavoidable challenge of life. In a remarkable way, the people of India have learned to control pain at the level of the mind and spirit and have developed endurance that we in the West find hard to understand. Westerners, in contrast, tend to view suffering as an injustice or failure, an infringement on their guaranteed right to happiness.” (pg. 187-188).

As I sat in pain and in a wheelchair waiting to be attended in the emergency department, I observed the others around me. They all had pain. They all came to a place that offered help, that sought to heal their pain. Their pain was unique to them.

There was the “drugged out guy.” He was loud, belligerent, and rude. He wanted “hydration” (whatever that meant,) and he wanted it now! He also demanded a room, pain meds, and a place to lay down. He was upset that they wouldn’t give him anything. Security was called, and he quieted down somewhat. There was the young couple with their first baby, only three weeks old. She had an unusually high temperature, and they were concerned and rightly so. There was “Brad” who was cheerful and chatty. He began a conversation. I found out he was 71 years old, had been divorced for 35 years, and had a son and a daughter that he did not have much contact with. Alcohol had played a part in the breakup of his marriage those many years ago. He was now sober, and a believer though not attending any particular church, yet with the hope of Jesus’ return. His ex-wife was now reaching out to him through their daughter, saying that she wanted to meet for coffee. He asked me; “Do you think I should? Why is she reaching out now”? I told him all things are redeemable. There was the “purple-haired” girl with all the tats. Just 21, she had a long history of health issues, was trying to study graphic design, was working full time, just getting by with paying high rent that didn’t leave much leftover at the end of the month. Life was tough. I just listened.

How do I point them to Jesus when I am in pain and when my life is not okay? My focus was on me, not them. However, in that emergency room the more I listened to Brad and conversed with the purple-haired girl, I started to empathize more with them and focus less on my pain. It didn’t alleviate my pain or fix the reason I was there, but it did give me another perspective. The pain we were all experiencing was limited to this life. This pain was the result of living in broken bodies in a broken world.

Sometimes we have no words to give, no magical formula. Saying things like, … “Jesus loves you and it will all be okay” isn’t what is needed at that moment. Sometimes you just need to listen. To make eye contact and communicate to them that they have value as people. We need to see people as Jesus sees them. “He will tend his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.” (Isa. 40:11).

Now about that ambulance at 3:00 AM, well, that will have to wait until next month.

Learning to see others as Jesus sees them!

Rev. Bill Allan
AGC President

POINTING THEM TO JESUS: When Life is Not Okay - Part 1