Sunday Reflection–Pain Felt and Observed

If you’ve read many of my Sunday Reflections, you know that one of my spiritual heroes is C. S. Lewis, the British theologian who died on November 22, 1963 – the same day President Kennedy was killed (that fact has nothing to do with this post).

Lewis wrote two books about pain.  The first was “The Problem of Pain” that was written in 1940.  It is his theoretical exposition of how a loving God can permit pain and suffering in his creatures whom he supposedly loves.  I’m not about to tackle this subject in a blog post, but I’ll share a quote from this book that resonates with me:

"Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself"

The second book was “A Grief Observed” in which he wrote about the pain he felt when his beloved wife Joy died of cancer after only three years of marriage.  This book detailed not only the pain of the loss of his wife, but the pain of doubting all of his beliefs about God.  Here are two quotes from this book:

"Aren't all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?"

"Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination."

Lewis both observed pain (the first book) and felt pain (the second).

I’ve been thinking a lot about pain recently – both before my surgery in anticipation of dealing with what I knew was coming (I’ve had several other surgeries over the years) – and after the surgery in the actuality of dealing with the pain.

At first the pain is a living thing that occupies your mind and body 24 hours a day.  Even in my sleep it was there and would wake me up in the middle of the night as the pain pills wore off.  When Betty was recuperating from her horseback accident the physical therapist told her that pain pills don’t remove the pain.  They just mask it so the body doesn’t feel it as acutely.  The pain is still there.  I believe that from my own experiences.

Over time as healing begins, the pain eases until it is sporadic – it hurts only when you move a certain way.  That’s the pain that I am feeling now.

As I write this on Saturday night for posting on Sunday afternoon, I have been watching the news about the shooting in Arizona where the congresswoman was critically injured and, as I write this, six others were killed – including a 9 year-old girl.  This is pain observed.

I’m not going deeper into this subject because I’ll lose my footing and perhaps even lose my way.  I would be in danger of another C. S. Lewis’ quote:

"Nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God."

I’ll let you chew on the things I have said and the C. S. Lewis quotes I have shared to make your own observations about pain.

The only sure footing I have about pain – both felt and observed – is that pain makes me acutely aware of how important it is to have other people standing in the gap for me – Betty, my sons and their families, my extended family, my friends.  When I am in pain I need other people to stand before God on my behalf.

And, if I’ll accept it, that’s a blessing in the midst of pain – felt and observed.