Those who know me intimately know that I live with pain. I have for a very long time. It is not my practice or desire to display or elaborate on this issue publicly, but for a glimpse of God’s grace, a shared truth, I will pull back the veil of privacy and offer another piece of my story. It is the story that God is writing, really, and I hope the offering of it will pull back the eternal veil to remind us that the Author is busy writing….

This body of mine has served me faithfully for decades, with little mercy from me. I have abused it. I have worshiped it. I have starved it. I have stuffed it. I have ignored it. I have pushed it hard in an attempt to appease the slavish god of Thin. I have required it to run on some pretty toxic fuel – much of which has come from the grocery isles. In recent years I have learned. I have repented. I have changed the way I eat and think – or at least I am on that journey. I have been caring for my body for awhile now. I am considerably happy in life. I have an uncommonly good and kind husband. I am learning grace for the journey. I have extraordinary comrades who share the journey with me. And I live with pain.

For the most part, I have resented this pain. I have fought it. I have apologized for it. I have pitied myself. I have chided myself. I have gone to envy. I have gone to resignation. And none of these responses has served me well. They may feel valid in the moment, but when they are spent, I am left depleted in their aftermath. No comfort. No encouragement. No life. They only diminish life. They offer only the age-old suggestion that this is as good as it gets. This is what now defines me. This is what I am stuck with. It’s just life. Take my meds and deal with it. And yet, I know better. I know there is more. I know that, should I choose to see and accept, my pain is a mediator of grace. The invitation to accept its presence is a holy, other-worldly gift. I can be free.

Hinds’ Feet on High Places, Hannah Hurnard, an excerpt:

“Here are the two guides which I promised,” said the Shepherd quietly.

“Who are they?” she whispered to the Shepherd. “Will you tell me their names?”

“They are good teachers; indeed, I have few better.” This, said He, motioning toward the first of the silent figures, “is named Sorrow. And the other is her twin sister, Suffering”.

“I can’t go with them,” she gasped. “I can’t! I can’t! O my Lord Shepherd, why do you do this to me? How can I travel in their company? It is more than I can bear!”

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At the familiar gesture, Grace and Glory knew them and cried out with a joy which was almost more than she could bear.

“Why, you are Suffering and Sorrow! Oh, welcome, welcome! I was longing to find you again.”

“Oh no!” they laughed, “We are no more Suffering and Sorrow than you are Much-Afraid. Don’t you know that everything that comes to the High Places is transformed? Since you brought us here with you, we are turned to Joy and Peace.”

And so I embrace the matter of pain and health in a different light these days – or at least I am trying.

Yesterday I endured yet another procedure to hopefully alleviate some of my discomfort and restore a quality of life that allows me to enjoy the things that bring me pleasure. The things I do now in the presence of pain. For the longest time my hope and goal has been to be pain free – free of this interloper, this enemy, this thief of joy. Yet, unexpectedly, a new desire is growing in me. The desire, not to be free from all the discomfort and pain that I consider hindrances to a full life, but rather the desire to live fully and free in the midst of the pain, in the midst of the stuff. To live freely enough to embrace whatever my kind Redeemer chooses to be my companions – and to call them Joy and Peace.

Stopped in the left-hand turn lane this morning waiting for the traffic light to change, I found myself engaged in the time-honored, almost irresistible practice of motorist everywhere – mindlessly staring at my blinker and that of the car in front of me. They were, of course, out of synch. Discordant flashes of light vying for dominance. And then it happened. The moment I knew would come and anticipated with surprising delight. With seeming effortless simplicity, they were blinking in perfect unison. Just for a moment. I found myself relaxing; I actually took a deeper breath. In this brief respite, all was as it should be in the universe.

I made my turn, and my thoughts turned with me. It’s silly. I find such calm in a captured moment of synchronized car blinkers. I want it to last just a little longer. In contrast, their discordance unsettles me. My nerves quietly chafe. It just bugs me. Proceeding with my morning commute, I began to hear the point those lights were making. The truth they were revealing, that life – life before me, life now, life after me – is out of synch. All is not as it should be with the universe. Not yet. There are forces vying for dominance. Inside of me. Outside of me. I also couldn’t ignore the longings that were bared. Longing for wholeness and healing and good. Longing for freedom from evil and the effects of sin. Longing for God to be known and loved. For the blinkers of life to be in synch…

And so I acknowledge my faithful car blinker. When the Author of Life needed to reassure one of His children that the Story of Redemption is safe in His skilled hand, He chose to speak through the most unlikely agent. My blinker’s disjointed sparring with the car in front of us forced me to acknowledge that there is a Greater Story in progress and that there is evil and loss and injustice and pain written into it. I mourn it globally; I mourn it personally. But greater still the graceful moment of glowing synchronization that allowed me a glimpse of eternal clarity. That brief moment of perfect harmony a reminder that the story is not yet finished, that there will be a day when all is made right. Discordance will step down and bow before Love.