Category Archives: pain

on solving the problem of pain…

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” –1 Corinthians 12:4-7

Take time to consider your creative side. We all have one—a creative edge to our personalities. Some of us writers, painters, musicians, chefs, singers, cooks, sewers, teachers, marketers, photographers, scrapbookers, gardeners, planners. The list is endless, and while you might not consider yourself particularly creative, you cannot escape the label. Why? Because you’ve been created in the image of God. Accordingly, there’s something about you that resembles the creative pulse of the Creator.

Along these lines, I have a question for you. It didn’t originate with me. It belongs to Jeannie Burlowski. She first asked it of me a couple of months ago during a pre-conference seminar for She Speaks. The session was designed to better prepare writers for their upcoming publisher meetings at the conference. Part of the preparation included writing a book proposal—a thirty-forty page document detailing an idea for a book, a marketing plan, and a few writing samples. As Jeannie was discussing the various components of the proposal and how it should be presented to publishers, she said something that interrupted my note-taking and forced my thinking.

“How does your book … your words help solve the problem of pain?”

Sit with that a minute. I did. In fact, I’ve sat with this question ever since first receiving it. It struck me back then; it strikes me still. The problem of pain and my words as a healing agent therein.

Really? Seriously? Apparently.

You see, no matter how I turn it, consider it, and think about it, I think she’s right. Not just as it pertains to me as a writer, but to all of us who create. We’re all in the business of solving pain. We may not realize the importance of our roll in the matter, but at the root of all creativity is this idea that art solves pain. We create because it brings us pleasure; in doing so, it brings others pleasure as well. Otherwise, why bother to pick up the pen or the paintbrush or the cookbook? Creativity helps to heal the wounded. And who of us haven’t felt some pain? Who of us haven’t “created” in an attempt to salve the pain of others?

And so, as you consider your creative bent, I ask you the same question I’ve been asking of myself over these past months. How does your creativity—whether in music, words, pictures, recipes—help solve the problem of pain? I know. It feels weighty, almost too much responsibility attached to our giftings.

Nonetheless, we cannot escape the reality that our “art” is a direct reflection of our God-given talents. The generous dispensation of creativity that Creator-Father has seeded into each one of us requires that we share it with others. In doing so, we bring joy to the earth. Whenever we create we sow eternal life, goodness, and hope into the temporal soil of pain.

Without art, we all suffer. Without creativity, we tend to forget the Creator. Without vision, we remain as we are, and left as we are, we’re unfinished.

There’s a whole lot of pain in this world yet untouched by the creativity residing in you. Your giftings are meant to be applied to that pain. Don’t underestimate your creativity just because it looks different from your neighbor’s. We shouldn’t measure our artful reflections against the artful reflections of others. It’s not fair to our DNA, and it certainly undercuts the witness of our Father’s fingerprints on our lives.

He made each of us unique, different, and with a specialness that can only display its worthiness through the skin delicately designed to hold its beauty. You are the owner of that skin, and you are given the rich privilege of unveiling your creativity as a healing agent to the problem of pain.

Take your creativity seriously, friends. Live it wildly, and share it liberally with the world. I, for one, have been the direct beneficiary of your giftings; they’ve have gone a long way to help solve the problem of my pain. Keep to it. I will endeavor to do the same. As always…

Peace for the journey,
~elaine
PS: What does your creativity lead you to create? How does it help solve the problem of pain? I’d love to hear from you.

surviving…

Funny how life seems to be laughing at me sometimes. Trust me when I tell you the hilarity is a one-sided affair. I don’t find anything remotely amusing about the predicament I’m in—a responsibility given to me months ago and one I willingly embraced when called upon. Little did I know back then what would be required of me to follow-through in the “right now.”

This coming Sunday.

Me, the keynote speaker for Cape Fear Valley Hospital’s annual Cancer Survivor Picnic.

And here’s the funny part—the moment where the joke cycles back on me. Where the taunting begins. Where the fullness of my previous “yes” weighs heavily upon my back and filters through my mind like shrapnel released from an exploding cannon.

It doesn’t seem that I’m doing very well with my surviving… cancer or otherwise. Some days are just getting through days; some days just pushing through days. Some days just wondering and wandering through days. And I feel so ill-equipped to say much of anything on the topic of survivorship. Certainly, I’ve had a few ideas over the past several months; I’ve chronicled a great many of them before you. But today, just a few days away from Sunday, words fail me.

And that is a very hard thing for me. Why? Because I don’t want them to be just any words. I want to mean them when I speak them. I don’t want to waste this occasion with my “blah, blah, blah” breast cancer dialogue. I want my words to speak better. To lift higher. To raise a toast to hope, not to the current getting through, pushing through, wandering through I’ve been feeling as of late. More than anything, I want to be a hope-giver, but friends, in these recent days, my heart has been living apart from hope. My heart has been simmering just above survival. And it’s been a confusing, confrontational mess.

I’m not sure what’s to blame. Maybe hormones, or lack therein. Maybe the summer heat. Maybe a full house and no room to think. Maybe an accumulation of a great many things. Regardless of the agitators, the end result doesn’t look much like hopeful survival. Rather, more like a gradual surrender to a deep wounding—to a healing process that is going to take far longer than what I had imagined.

Is survival really survival when so much hurt exists inside? When getting through, pushing through, and wandering through is the best you can do? Is that survival? Is that enough to move a day’s doing into the win column? Shouldn’t survival be based on more? Shouldn’t the qualifiers read better? Part of me thinks so; the other part of me, perhaps a lesser part, is willing to cut me some slack.

I’m having a hard time deciding about my days, friends, and I’m having a really hard time reasoning out the hospital’s choice for a speaker this year. I want to rise above the current confusion to deliver a strong confirmation about the hope that I profess to believe. I want this coming Sunday to count for heaven’s sake, not mine. Otherwise, what is the point? Really, what is the point?

Platforms are meant for Jesus; not me. Still and yet, there’s one awaiting my presence this weekend. A grace so undeserved, especially for one who’s just getting through, pushing through, and wandering through these days… wondering if my wrestling brings enough credibility to the discussion of true survivorship.

I know what most of you will say, my kind readers, and I appreciate your affirmation in advance. But I don’t want to just receive your words; I want to firmly believe them. I’ve come to depend on them, for we are the body of Christ. We are pilgrims together on this road of faith, walking side by side and held together by our strong foundation, Jesus Christ. You will be standing with me this Sunday when I step before the microphone and speak my story. You are part of my story, and even when words have failed me, you have not. You share in my survivorship, and I will carry your strength with me throughout this week.

Thank you for not laughing at me when I cry; thank you for not crying when I so desperately need to laugh. But mostly, thank you for giving me a safe place to release my feelings. I’m in a vulnerable position right now, a raw and uprooted place, but I’m still here… getting through, pushing through, wondering and wandering though.

Perhaps in the end, maybe enough of a definition of true survivorship.

Peace for the journey,
~elaine
PS: Winners for the notecards will be picked with my next post. There’s still time to join in; see previous post “PS:” for details.

the road-walking Jesus

“So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him.” {Mark 5:24}
I think about both of them today—two needy souls approaching Jesus from different angles some 2000 years ago. I imagine that day was in keeping with most of the days of Christ’s earthly tenure. Days of…
crowds;
forward movement;
teaching;
healing;
praying;
touching;
loving.
Days of doing what Jesus did best—unearthing the treasures of heaven, revealing the heart and hands of the Divine. Those who knew him and loved him followed him closely, kept his words within earshot and his flesh within arm’s reach. Others—those who knew him less—followed closely as well… their motives in keeping with their needs. Some physical; some spiritual; some just trying to make sense of the rumors that preceded his arrival. Regardless of their reasons for following after Jesus, wherever he went he drew a crowd.
That day would be no different. Fresh off a detour to Gerasa and a showdown with demons, Christ stepped ashore to find a crowd awaiting his arrival. A synagogue ruler named Jarius approached Jesus with a frontal advance, fell at Christ’s feet and earnestly pleaded with him for the life of his young daughter. An unidentified woman approached Jesus from behind, earnestly hoping that a stretch of her arm through tangled robes might grant her a temporary grasping of his hem and, therefore, a permanent healing of her flesh.
Both of them candidates for healing. Both of them operating with a measure of faith. Both of them knowing that proximity to Christ’s presence was the optimum course of action to procure a sought after victory. There would be no sideline watching that day… no curiosity mingling on the outskirts of a moving grace. Instead, they would urgently press into that grace… into Jesus from different angles, believing that with him would come the answer to their need—their pain and their suffering.
I am moved by their simple, yet resolute understanding of who Jesus was; not an understanding birthed from years of scholarly tutorial or religious instruction or thousands of years of hindsight, but rather understanding birthed from personal experience. From hearing and seeing firsthand the generous dispensation of his miraculous grace and then, further, believing that such charity was intended for them at a personal level. They didn’t underestimate Christ’s sacred intentions; instead, they had enough faith to believe that they were, each one, his intention—the reason behind his walking along their road that day. And so, they approached his majesty and his mystery amidst the chaotic pageantry and secured the longed for victory that would forever change the trajectory of their lives.
Proximity to Christ’s presence is the precursor to change, friends. Whether it be a healing of the heart, the mind, or the flesh, taking hold of Jesus in your midst will secure for you his undivided attention and active willingness to undertake you cause. To place upon himself the burdens of your heart and then to mediate his grace and mercy into every angle, nook and cranny, twist and turn of your plight. When it comes to a personal need for healing, a sideline faith laced with tentative curiosity and rumored possibility holds no curative power; instead, it keeps hope and expectation lingering at the edge of what Christ came to do… comes to do…
to free us from that which entraps us—body, soul, and spirit.
We don’t get to choose the blueprint or course of action for how that freeing will occur, but we do get to choose our participation in the matter. When we approach Jesus Christ with our needs, whether it be from the front, back, or from a side-to-side angle, he never fails to get involved. God isn’t reluctant in offering his grace and tender mercy into our situations. He won’t ever force his grace upon us… make us choose him, prefer him, rely on him when our wills are tethered otherwise. But when we do ask Christ for a moment or two of his consideration—his divine intervention into our need—we can be certain of his willingness to act on our behalf.
We are what he came to do—the reason behind his walking his daily grace some 2000 years ago. The reason he left us his personal diary of sorts… a forever record of remembrance so that we might find ourselves somewhere within the story. So that we might live and record our own stories of faith, so that they might serve as a lasting memorial to the transformational power and generosity of our road-walking Jesus.
Today, if you have a need, then you have a Jesus who’s headed your way. Word is… he’s in town. Word is… the crowds are pressing in. Word is… he’s got room for one more. Won’t you join me on the road to behold the Lamb of God and then to take hold of all of that for which he has taken hold of each one of us? I’ve got just enough faith to take me there. Just enough faith to keep me there until I’ve seen his face, felt the transfer of his power, and heard his voice speaking over me…
Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace, and be freed from your suffering. {Mark 5:34}
Indeed, blessed peace for the moment. Blessed peace for my journey. Even so, dear Jesus, I come needy to your feet this day. May your peace be my portion and your healing my freedom song. Amen. So be it.
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on landing safely home…

This is an important post for me.
I want to go somewhere with my thoughts—a “place” I’ve been dwelling at in recent days. I don’t think I’m alone in my dwelling, for I believe that there are many of us who’ve pitched our tents a time or two or ten at this address, especially following a season of trauma. It doesn’t mean I want to live here forever, and I suppose there are a few of you who quietly wish that I’d just get on with it—”it” being the rest of my life. But I can’t; nor should I. Nor should any of you because in doing so—in prematurely getting on with it—we run the risk of short-changing the trajectory that will safely and most healthily land us at the threshold of our “next.”
Let me explain.
A couple of nights ago, my husband and I finished watching the HBO miniseries The Pacific. It was grizzly and gruesome and full of a grittiness that exacted a toll on my senses… my thoughts as well. Still and yet, the story was compelling enough to keep me engaged (and fast-forwarding on several occasions). In addition, I wanted to spend some couch time with my husband. He’s a history buff who holds a special interest in wartime eras. Accordingly, he was all about his Christmas gift (thanks boys for thinking of it), and because I’m all about him we spent several evenings bonding together with the men of the 1st Marine Division at Guadalcanal, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima.
There’s so much I could tell you about the movie, so many moments when I felt as if I were there, tasting the torment and feeling the pulse of the Marines who bravely manned their stations and, even more so, bravely pushed forward when the orders were given. You’d expect that… that I would write about their bravery and about their pushing through, but those are neither the scenes nor the sentiment that captured me most fully. Certainly they are noteworthy. Those kinds of victories are the makings of good headlines, best-selling books, ticker-tape parades, and made-for-television movies. Without the bravery of countless armed forces, which undoubtedly served as a pre-cursor to certain triumph, we’d have far less of these moments to chronicle with our token remembrance. Victories are important, but not all of them are won on the battlefield. Some of them are won in lesser places—the silent fields that surround a heart and life once the swords have found their scabbards and the guns their holstered display.
Some victories arrive after the obvious. Some emerge on the heels of a battle quietly fought on the front lines of a return home—a safe landing at a crossroads in a cornfield where the only ammunition in sight is the manure-laden fields begging a healthy harvest in due season. That is the sentiment from The Pacific that captured my heart on the final evening of our watching… the “coming home” sentiment and all that must have meant for the Marines who made it home and who were willing to do the hard thing of living… beyond the Pacific.
Scene after scene, I witnessed the “dropping off” of these men and women, back into the normalcy of what used to be. Some returning to fanfare. Some returning to anonymity. All returning with renewed perspective about their lives and the questions that came alongside to challenge their former safe parameters and sterile thinking. All of them wanting life as usual. Most of them realizing that life as usual could never be again. Instead, life as usual was infiltrated by scalded memories and harsh woundings that refused amputation from their thinking. Thus, a new battle for home turf began within the Marine’s soul with little or no support from a country that proudly displayed its flag, bought its war bonds, and wrote its memoirs.
We left them alone to fight those unseen battles, to deal with their silent pains, while bravely and arrogantly shouting our get on with it. Suck it up. Deal with it. Man up. That’s life. Move on or get left behind.
Easy words to speak; harder words to receive. All quick fixes to the problem of pain. A boorish and rude interruption into the process of healing. Still and yet, words that were often spoken when silence gripped a conversation… when answers weren’t so obvious and when the one offering up solutions wasn’t comfortable with suffering’s significance. Instead of lending grace and time and community to a returning Marine, many were quick to wrap up their comforting with cards and calls and casseroles and deem it enough for the healing.
It wasn’t enough back then; it isn’t enough right now.
And lest you think I’m talking solely about the honorable men and women that serve in our Armed Forces, you’ve missed the bigger picture. For all of us, every last one of us, have stood on the battlefield at one time or another in our lives. We’ve all fought hard for victories that bloodied and bruised us along the way. We all boast the wounding and scars of the sacred ground we’ve fought to preserve… the hallowed hill we’ve climbed to take. And when the battle is through, when the victory seemingly won, we, like the Marines of The Pacific get dropped on in our cornfields… left at our train stations and commissioned with the responsibility of getting on with it.
And somewhere in between the dropping off and getting on with it, there resides a gap. A huge gap. Rows and rows of planted seed that requires time and tending before moving forward with harvest. To quickly step over it is to short change the trajectory that will safely and most healthily land us at the threshold of our “next.”  I clearly saw that in the hearts and minds of those returning soldiers in The Pacific. I clearly see this in the heart and mind of me. Even in some of you.

And so, today, I speak to it, and I tell you that I’m not willing to short change my trajectory into my “next.” Today, having just jumped off the train, I willingly stand on the edge of my cornfield and wait. I see the tender shoots before me and will pause long enough to watch them grow in season, not according to my almanac. I will not let others rush me to the other side. They mean well with their cards and calls and casseroles, and the best part of these offerings is nourishment for my walk-thru. I am grateful for them, but they are not enough to heal me. A suffering season that has required a pound or two of flesh as well as a pound or two of struggling faith requires more than human memorial.
It requires eternal mending—sacred renovation and restoration from the only One who knows what it means to suffer perfectly through to victory. God is the trajectory that will safely land me at the threshold of my “next.” Accordingly, he meets me in train station, and he tells me not to rush the journey home. He says that he has time enough to linger with me in my thinking—my talking and my pain. He reminds me that I am the reason for the battle he waged—for the sacred ground he fought to preserve, the hallowed hill he climbed to take. And that according to him, all that is required with my getting on with it is a willingness to place my wearied hand in his nail-scarred one and to rest my wounded flesh next to his. Together, we will unhurriedly watch the harvest come in.
Victories are important, friends, but not all of them are won on the battlefield. Some of them are won next to Jesus, in the silent fields that surround a heart and life upon the return home. This is where I’m standing today. Others may see the battle as over, but I see it is ongoing. Not because I have some martyring need to linger in the pain, but rather because I know that band-aids are poor company when wounds fester with lingering infection. Thus, I give myself permission to tenderly and carefully walk through the mine-field in front of me. I give you permission as well.
Don’t rush you’re getting on with it. Simply live the grace that is given you today, and drink in the view from our Father’s side. He is the trajectory who will safely and wholly… holy lead you home. As always…
Peace for the journey,
PS: I just asked Amelia to pick a number between 1 and 34. She picked 20. So, Cheryl is the winner of Mariel’s new study, Knowing God Through His Names. I’ll have this in the mail to you tomorrow!

kneeling

Sometimes a heart gets so filled to overflow, it’s hard to know what to do with it all. I’ve had that problem all afternoon; not a bad problem to have. Better to be filled than be depleted.
Let me explain.
I began my morning at the cancer center, not for treatment but for a massage. In addition, I talked to my doctor about the persistent tingling in my fingers, especially my right thumb which has now developed blood blisters. As I’ve mentioned before, chemotherapy is not without side-effects. After my consultation, I was on my way out of the center when I noticed her—a sister cancer patient I’ve sat next to on a few occasions. I hadn’t seen her in a while. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments have taken their toll on this precious woman. The physical effects on her fragile frame took me by surprise. I had to stifle my shock.
Alongside her sat her husband. The effects of his wife’s chemo was also evident in his stoutly frame. Tears welled up in his eyes as I knelt next to his wife with words of comfort. He tried not to display his pain, but something released in him in those few moments, and I was undone with the suffering. It was palpable. Tenderly, I expressed to him my acknowledgment for the hard work he was doing alongside his wife and thanked him for his perseverance. I looked them both squarely in the eyes and said, “You can do this; by God’s grace you can do this.” I hugged them both, wished them a “Merry Christmas” and made my way out to my van.
I choked on my tears while driving home. Cancer has multiple victims; not just the ones who are carrying it in their flesh. Caregivers suffer as well, sometimes at a deeper, less communicable level. Their outlets for pain are limited, but it is, nonetheless, very real and tender and true. Sometimes they deserve a closer look from those who sit on the outside of the inner, cancer circle. Sometimes they need our knees, our hugs, our prayers, our compassion… every bit as much as the patient does. They need to know that they are not alone as they walk this road of companionship with their loved one.
I know this one, because I’ve witnessed the need in my own companion… my husband for the journey. Some of you know him as Preacher Billy. Some of you call him friend. Some of you simply realize that there has to be a better half to my household, and in this season, I’m willing to concede the honor to him! I don’t know what I did to deserve such a man like mine, but I believe it has everything to do with grace and God and his Son’s death to self so that I might fully participate in the divine nature. Tonight, I stand amazed at the beauty of such a gift; not just for me but for all of us who know the unmerited, unconditional love of another.
Maybe not through a spouse, but through a child. A friend. A parent. A relative. A neighbor. A co-worker. Regardless of their connection to you, you have known their love in lavish measure as they have cared for you, some days in spite of you. You’ve never had to ask for their love. It simply arrived on time, in time, and filled with enough time to service your needs.
On paper, such love doesn’t compute. Selfless loving makes little sense to a world’s mentality that says “What’s in it for me?” Never once does unconditional love focus on self; instead, this kind of love puts others ahead of self, content to bring up the rear with little fanfare or notice. Caregivers often fall into this role, believing that their come-alongside participation was a role they were destined to play, without condition.
I imagine all of us could think of someone who fits this role in our own lives. If not for us, then for someone we love. This is a good time of year to remember them; to stop in our tracks long enough to kneel down before them and ask a few questions. Wipe a few tears. Offer some encouragement. Acknowledge some of the pain. It’s such a seemingly little thing to do—pausing to notice suffering. But for the one on the receiving end of your concern, it means a great deal. In many ways, your acknowledgment validates their courageous decision to participate in a loved one’s pain.
I don’t know what my kneeling accomplished today; it does, indeed, seem like a small thing in the grand scheme of my friend’s pain. But I know what it means to me to have my suffering acknowledged. And I’ve watched my husband benefit from the same consideration. It means everything to us, and I don’t want to go through the rest of my days skirting around the issue of human pain. I want to be invested accordingly, as the Lord determines in the days to come.
I want to be a kneeler. I want holes in my jeans and dirt on my knees because of my willingness to bend and to bow and to say, “You can do this; by God’s grace you can do this.” Sometimes it’s the best gift we can give to one another.
Our knees, followed by God’s word of grace.
Would you bow on behalf of another today? Would you be willing to notice the pain of those who are suffering in the flesh and those caregivers who most closely suffer with them? Perhaps God is prompting your heart in this very moment to move into action. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Do it now, and tell them, even as you remind yourself…
“You can do this; by God’s grace you can do this.”
You can do this, my friends, and because of God’s grace to you, the suffering souls of this world have now become your charge and keep. They need your love. Kneel now; kneel often. Kneel low, and kneel always in the strong and mighty name of our Lord Jesus Christ. You give to the King when you kneel to his grace. As always…
Peace for the journey,
~elaine
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