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The Unexpected Gifts of Pain


It is often hard for me to come to honest terms with my reality of chronic pain. When it all began 15 months ago, I told myself it was just phase, an unfortunate speed bump in my otherwise remarkably normal life.  In time, the headaches would stop, and the violent weight of anxiety and depression would be lifted. But then, those things didn’t stop; they got worse. And there finally came a point where I had to take cold, hard, look at reality and tell myself, “Lindsey, this is not just a phase of your life. This is your life.”  And I’m still struggling to accept that.

I mourn the life I used to have. A life where I could have my own career and be financially independent. A life where I could jog and hike whenever I wanted to. A life where I could make plans to do fun things with my friends and family without having to add, “but there is a good chance I won’t be able to go.” And I could go on and on and on about all the great things chronic pain ripped away from grasp after knocking me to the ground.

But frankly, who on earth would want to hear that sob story? It’s time to look at things in a radically new light. Lately, I’ve been getting this lyric from my Catholic School days stuck in my head. One part of the church hymn, “Glory and Praise to Our God,” goes: “In His wisdom he strengthens us / like gold that’s tested in fire,” (Schutte, 4). So I’m at a crossroads: I can continue to see myself as some pitiful victim, or I can see myself like gold being strengthened by the pain. And when I reflect deeper, as much as I sometimes don’t want to admit it: pain has been a damn good teacher. So without further ado, here are some of the things pain has taught me:



 1) Empathy

Before pain took over my life, I didn’t feel real empathy towards sick people. I mean I wasn’t a sociopath either— of course I felt sorry for them (sympathy) and genuinely wished they would get better. But it was also easy for me to stop feeling sorry for them when I felt the time was appropriate, and go back to whatever I was doing.

Looking back, this is extremely ironic as now one of my biggest complaints is: “I hate how people just get to feel sorry for me for a few minutes, and then simply move on with their lives. I don’t get to move on with my life because I am trapped in pain every moment of every day.”  Well, guess who is more empathetic towards sick people now?

Naturally, I am most empathetic towards migraine and headache sufferers. Today I read a Facebook comment on an article headaches from a 45 year-old woman suffering from chronic migraines to the point where she is totally trapped in her own home. Not only that, but with her kids grown and moved out of the house, she feels her life is completely devoid of purpose. Tears automatically welled up in my eyes and I was overcome with the irrational (and debatably creepy) urge to ask her where she lives, drive to that state, and then hug her while saying, “I know. I know. Me too.” I clicked down on the replies, and so many women beat me to it, expressing how their situations are similar and how sorry they are for her. What a beautiful thing to cry on the behalf of a stranger. Now when I pray to God for strength to deal with the pain, I also throw in a prayer for all these resilient men and women that I don’t know who happen to be fighting the same fight.  

2) Humility

Tough circumstances force me to question some of the assumptions I made about life. I assumed that I was entitled to a healthy life free of pain. I am a victim because that was stolen from me. Yet, underneath this assertion lies the assumption that my health is mine to begin with, that my life is mine to begin with…But was it?

While I was in college, I took a “Bible as Literature” course. We studied Job, the godly man who was plagued with excruciatingly painful sores in addition to losing his family, livestock, property, and his friends’ compassion. Finally, Job asks God, “What gives?” And God goes on this gigantic tirade that puts Job in his place. He begins with:

                “Where were you when I laid the Earth’s foundation? / Tell me, if you understand. / Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! / Who stretched a measuring line across it? / On what  were its footings set, / or who laid its cornerstone-- / while the morning stars sang together / and all angels shouted for joy?”  (Job 38:4-7).

And that is just the beginning. He goes on and on, challenging Job on whether or not he really knows the oceans, clouds, light, rain, plants, and many other creations. To be totally honest, when I first read this I thought, “Wow. God kind of sounds like an egotistical jerk.”  But that was me wrongfully demoting Him to a creature vulnerable to human sins, not recognizing Him as our all loving and knowing father. Now I think I get God’s tangent. He wasn’t trying to make Job feel worthless, but was (rightfully) pointing out, “Look, Job. I know this sucks, but you need to pipe down. I have my reasons for allowing your suffering just like I had my reasons for creating the earth and the oceans. You don’t have to understand everything. You just have to love and trust me.”

I’m just like Job, needing to likewise be put in my place. I am not entitled to health or any other good things (food, shelter, family, etc.). Yet this doesn’t make me feel bitter, but rather freed. It totally flips my perspective because I was never robbed or victimized like I assumed. My life and health were never mine to begin with— they belonged to God. Every good thing I have I have is not because I am entitled to it; it is a gift from God. This leads me too…

3) Gratitude

Last weekend, my fiancé and I practiced dancing for our wedding and we couldn’t stop laughing. 5, 6, 7, 8! I would shout like a drill sergeant. And then we would march in rigid step-together-steps, staring down at our feet in complete concentration. And then one of us would fumble by either stepping in the wrong direction or missing the beat. Or I would randomly decide it was time for me to do a twirl even though my partner clearly did not agree. Something that was supposed to just be natural and causal fun had transformed into such a serious, forced, and overly-focused discipline. Neither of us are dancers and both of us are hopelessly awkward. We had to take breaks from our practice because I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes.

 I joked, “Look at how hard it is for us to do something that is effortless for everyone else? I feel like we are aliens, practicing so that we can look like people at our wedding.” Then, in my best alien voice I said, “LOOK, HUMANS. WE ARE ONE OF YOU. WE ARE DOING DANCING NOW!”

That made him burst into laughter, which of course, only made me laugh even more. It was just a simple 15-minutes of our lives together, but will go down as one of my favorite memories of all time. For those few minutes, I was having so much fun that I was able to ignore the constant light throbbing of my head and the dull aching in my muscles.

Another one of my constant complaints is, “People don’t realize that my ‘good’ day would be a normal person’s ‘crappy’ day? My whole pain scale is whack now.” And yes, this is one is still true. My pain scale has been re-calibrated, but the silver lining is: clearly my joy scale has been recalibrated too. I couldn’t just practice dancing with my fiancé on any day. This was a relatively low-pain day which meant I got to bask in the beauty and delight of such a simple pleasure. The bad makes the good so much better, and I am grateful for that.




For length’s sake, I have to stop at these three lessons. However, I originally planned on adding many more such as patience, perspective, and wisdom (perhaps there will have to be a “Part 2”). This just further demonstrates how our greatest burdens can yield such bountiful harvests. When I reflect on these gifts of pain, it makes me question: What makes a successful person? If the answer is a career, money, and health, then I am failing miserably. But if the answer begins with empathy, humility, and gratitude, then God has truly flooded my life with goodness.




Works Cited

"Dan Schutte-- Glory and Praise to Our God." Genius, 2018, genius.com/Dan-schutte-glory-and-praise-to-our-god-lyrics.

New International Version, Biblica, 2011, www. biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2038-41
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