This is not easy to write in that the subject of redemptive pain can’t be explored fully in a simple blog post. But I believe it’s a topic we shouldn’t run away from.

I’m not a masochist. I don’t go looking for pain. But I do believe that pain is more useful than we would like to admit and that God can bring good out of even those things that wound us the most.

Physical pain is an ‘unpleasant sensation often caused by intense or damaging stimuli’, the dictionary says. Most pain resolves promptly once the painful stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but sometimes pain persists despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body; and sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease. Yet there is a purpose in pain, for “it motivates withdrawal from damaging or potentially damaging situations, protection of a damaged body part while it heals, and avoidance of similar experiences in the future.” Leprosy is such a devastating disease precisely because nerves in the body which would warn us of danger (eg fire) are damaged and so the body can be hurt without the person realising it. Diabetes can result in neuropathy (nerve damage)that can lead to amputation of limbs. I have to have my feet tickled once a year to check that the nerves there are still functioning!

None of us really like pain, though, and seek to avoid it, whether that’s physical pain or emotional pain. We are often happy to settle for anaesthesia rather than long-term solutions, though. I’m grateful for anaesthetics (especially when you have to have an operation!), but I’m aware also that my sinful heart seeks to cover up the true reasons for pain at times, especially emotional pain.

Rich Mullins, an artist I admire greatly, struggled greatly with feelings of loneliness and isolation for much of his life – emotional pain that may not be visible to the outside world but which can be agonising, nonetheless. From this position, however, he wrote the song “The Agony and the Glory”:

“Would you make a wish tonight if you saw a falling star?
Would you like for happiness to shower right down where you are?
Could be the things we have to suffer become the way to find the other.

Oh, we’ve got to live with the agony and the glory
With the pain and joy we can learn to rejoice and embrace both sides of the story
Not a single moment goes to waste if it works to make you holy
Let the Spirit have His way with you through the agony and the glory.

When you say your prayers tonight, what will you ask the Lord to do?
Do you want your pleasure now, or do you want His will for you?
We can’t escape from all the tensions, why not embrace His glory and them?

Oh, we’ve got to live with the agony and the glory
Through the pain and joy we can learn to rejoice and embrace both sides of the story
Not a single moment goes to waste if it works to make you holy
Let the Spirit have His way with you through the agony and the glory.

We give thanks for the sun, we give thanks for the rain
He is Lord of them all, all the joy and the pain.”
(Rich Mullins, ‘The Agony and the Glory’)

I think what’s important for us to understand (and this links in to the ongoing need for surrender to God) is that God works for the good of those who love Him, no matter what. Even in agony, even in pain, God is there. We so often want the ‘quick fix’, the ‘easy solution’. We so often want other people to be the solution: a friend to love us, a spouse who will alleviate our loneliness, and then we wonder why relationships break under the strains of impossible expectations. We fail to understand that the ache in our hearts can only be healed by God. It’s only when we stop trying to run away from the pain and come before God that we can find some measure of peace. We need a long-term perspective, not a demanding attitude that God fix things in the way we deem best.

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Cor 4:17)

May we have the courage to invite God into our pain and allow Him to bring from the agony the ‘eternal glory that far outweighs’ all our suffering.