The night after Christmas I
brought my 4-month-old son Benjamin crying to the ER
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after enduring hours of
uncontrollable crying, and a myriad of futile attempts to soothe him. As
pediatrician examined him, he applied eye drops, and asked the nurse turn off
the light. Holding a black light over his face he said, “Aha” and pointing to
Ben’s left eye “He has a corneal abrasion.”
I would have never guessed that something was wrong
with his eye. I was certain he was having digestive problems. The veteran doc
sensed our bewilderment. He explained, “When babies flail their arms they sometimes
inadvertently scratch their eyes. Because of their lack of language and motor
skills, they cannot point to what hurts
nor can they tell us what hurts. In other words, they cannot localize their pain.”
Like infants, there are
times when we are hurting and cannot detect the source of our pain. Times when a
little “Tylenol” will not do the trick.
Times when we’ve run up against something less obvious and treating it
means first identifying its source.
help of counselors and spiritual directors. Unable to fix what’s wrong, exploring the possibility of a spiritual
and emotional cause seems to be a sensible course of action.
The prospect of exploring wounds is scary. We’re afraid of uncovering painful stuff
we’ve gladly left behind. I know because for the last fifteen years I’ve done
just that. With the help of amazing counselors, spiritual directors and the
support of my wife and friends I’ve looked beneath the dark blanket of
depression, over the cliffs of fear and anxiety and walked into the raging
waters of grief—again, and again, and again.
Each time I’ve sought to
“localize” my pain I’ve discovered the Lord in a new way. Each journey to the
source of hurt has led me to an even more powerful source of life—God, who had
beat me to the scene. Every single time God meets me to shine light into my
darkness, hold me as I peered over the edge the abyss of abandonment and fear
and walks with me into the roaring waters of sadness and loss.
feared would cripple me, freed me to walk into new life, deeper levels of
intimacy and allowed me greater availability to serve others.
Localizing our pain will
always lead us to localize the power of God’s healing grace, already at work in
our lives.