This morning, I left the house well before sunrise to participate in a Holy Thursday-Good Friday prayer vigil set in the chapel of our church. The vigil was to last all night and well into Good Friday morning. T...he chapel was filled with plants, and candles cast a soft glow on the walls. It was our own Garden of Gethsemane with our Host sitting up on the altar.
I had chosen to come during the 5 am-7 am block of time. I’m normally up that time anyway, so I wasn’t worried about falling asleep during prayer. And even though the dim light played with my balance, my hit and miss vertigo blessedly left me alone. But pain did not.
Within minutes of sitting down, my feet began to swell and push at the inside of my shoes. My hands, unmoving on my lap, began to swell and stiffen. My back hollered in pain and every other joint ached like with the flu.
Pain hates to be ignored.
Sitting there in the chapel, thinking about Jesus’ death and sacrifice, I could have told myself to stop complaining. I could have told myself that Jesus suffered far worse and that I could put up with a little pain for the next two hours.
But God doesn't want us to compare our pain to Jesus’.
Yesterday, I saw my neighbor getting into her car on the way to work and both of us stopped to chat for a minute. She shared with me that she had recently put her dog to sleep and I told her how I had put my own cat to sleep a few months ago. I told her that Mouschi had been my only constant companion for fifteen years. And immediately she said, “Oh, it’s worse for you then.”
I stopped her. “Don’t say that,” I said. “Pain is pain. It’s not worse for someone else. Your pain is unique to you.”
Jesus didn’t suffer and die on the cross so that we could fight through our own pain by devaluing it compared to Christ’s. Jesus suffered not so he could be the supreme sufferer, but so that we might always know in our pain that Jesus knows us. There is not one thing we can suffer with that Jesus doesn’t know.
And because he knows pain, because he knows our pain, we are never alone.
I had chosen to come during the 5 am-7 am block of time. I’m normally up that time anyway, so I wasn’t worried about falling asleep during prayer. And even though the dim light played with my balance, my hit and miss vertigo blessedly left me alone. But pain did not.
Within minutes of sitting down, my feet began to swell and push at the inside of my shoes. My hands, unmoving on my lap, began to swell and stiffen. My back hollered in pain and every other joint ached like with the flu.
Pain hates to be ignored.
Sitting there in the chapel, thinking about Jesus’ death and sacrifice, I could have told myself to stop complaining. I could have told myself that Jesus suffered far worse and that I could put up with a little pain for the next two hours.
But God doesn't want us to compare our pain to Jesus’.
Yesterday, I saw my neighbor getting into her car on the way to work and both of us stopped to chat for a minute. She shared with me that she had recently put her dog to sleep and I told her how I had put my own cat to sleep a few months ago. I told her that Mouschi had been my only constant companion for fifteen years. And immediately she said, “Oh, it’s worse for you then.”
I stopped her. “Don’t say that,” I said. “Pain is pain. It’s not worse for someone else. Your pain is unique to you.”
Jesus didn’t suffer and die on the cross so that we could fight through our own pain by devaluing it compared to Christ’s. Jesus suffered not so he could be the supreme sufferer, but so that we might always know in our pain that Jesus knows us. There is not one thing we can suffer with that Jesus doesn’t know.
And because he knows pain, because he knows our pain, we are never alone.
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