When I was a junior in high school, our English class was American literature. We read A Farewell to Arms, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451 and the like. (Well, some of us did.) Our teacher was Mr. Gufford. He had a long ponytail and a goatee and wore jeans every day. And he had big plans for his honors students who had never had to work for our As and Bs.
Writing had always come easy to me and up until his class, I just assumed that my ability would remain unchallenged. How wrong I was. He was the first teacher (but not the last) who wasn’t blown away by my writing skills. And I loved and hated him for it.
We had to choose an American author for our second-semester research paper. (This is back when we had to go to the library and use the Dewey decimal system and the big encyclopedias of literary criticism. No internet. No Google. The dark ages.) I chose Edgar Allen Poe.
I admit my fascination with him was fairly unexpected. I had always been a mostly shiny, happy person and my interest in someone so twisted and dark just didn’t really seem to fit. But I was captivated just the same. And after doing some research, the mood of his writing made total sense.
As you would probably guess, he had a terrible childhood. Abandoned by his father, orphaned when his mother died at a young age, abused by his aunt and uncle. As an adult he dealt with constant financial struggles. Then his beloved wife died of tuberculosis and he drank himself to death.
It was an excellent paper (even by Mr. Gufford’s standards, 94%, thank you very much) and I reported all my research with flawless citation and style. But then for my closing paragraph, I took a risk, using my own words instead of quoting a pro:
“Poe’s life is clearly visible in his works. There are numerous examples of similarities between his stories and characters and his real life and himself. His style and content have fascinated, confused and intrigued critics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Tragedy and sadness were the inspiration for many of his writings. If Poe had lived a happy and satisfying life, he would not be the literary genius he is regarded as today.”
At sixteen, I made my first connection between personal pain and a lasting contribution to the world. God planted a tiny seed in that thesis that would lie dormant for many years. But the rain was coming.
Now 20 years later, that seed of thought has grown into a tree of certainty. After seeing it confirmed in my own life and the lives of others, I now believe that not only does pain inspire the most powerful art and ministry, but it’s absolutely critical to the process.
Brad recently took me to see Love and Mercy, the biopic of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. I love rock history so I couldn’t NOT see it. But be warned. This is not the feel-good movie of the summer that early Beach Boys music may imply. You may want to hit a couple Prozac before you go. It’s brutal.
I knew Brian Wilson’s story for the most part and was generally prepared for the angst and struggle. Child abuse, mental illness, lots of drugs (not the good kind), strained/broken relationships. Whatever pain wasn’t numbed by some substance demanded expression and came out in the form of what is considered one of the greatest rock albums of all time.
But the cost was high.
I have a dear friend who’s a recovering/recovered alcoholic. He’s worked his butt off in rehab, grabbed his second chance at life by the horns and is now a successful businessman who loves what he does. He still goes to AA meetings twice a week and ferociously guards his sobriety. One of my heroes.
I got wind of another friend of a friend who was struggling with addiction and I called my buddy for help. “Look, I really need you to talk to this guy. I don’t know what he’s going through. His family doesn’t know what he’s going through. He needs you.”
My request was met with a lot of hemming and hawing. “Lindsey, I don’t want to be an alcoholic for the rest of my life. I don’t want that to be my identity.”
I told him I totally got that. And your weakest moment should definitely not become your identity. Your identity is not something to be lost or gained, searched for or discovered. It was established by our Creator long before you ever existed.
But as I explained to him, the deepest pain of your life is where your ministry is found. It’s the way God designed the process: suffer, survive, reach back to help others struggling with the same issue. “You have something this guy needs,” I insisted. “You can’t hold out on him.”
After a lot more back and forth, he sighed and finally caved. “I know you’re right. It’s the twelfth step.”
“The twelfth step?”
“In AA. ‘Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.’”
I scowled. “If you knew I was right, why did you argue with me about it for 15 minutes?”
“Because I don’t want the ministry of alcoholism,” he said, irritated.
“Well, I don’t want to ministry of divorce and a broken family,” I retorted. “Unfortunately, God doesn’t let us pick our ministries. They’re kind of assigned.”
And they are. Assigned, I mean. But you don’t have to accept the assignment. You can just suffer through whatever it is as best you can and then try to act like it never happened. Hide it. Stuff it. Ignore it. Numb it.
But if you do that, you rob yourself of a chance to have your pain redeemed into something of great value. You rob others of the help you can be to them in their time of need. And you rob God of the glory He wants to reflect in you and your restoration.
(Not to mention you’ll probably just go postal in Publix someday and they’ll have to call the guys in the white coats.)
Burn this one into your brain: Your pain is your power.
People find incredible power in their pain. They use it to create great beautiful things (music, literature, art), initiate social change, start foundations, volunteer in organizations tied to their suffering, participate in and lead support groups, etc.
Most of the greatest world changes were triggered by pain. We are all created in the image of God and there is something in all of us that knows our pain is supposed to serve a greater purpose.
But for the Christ follower, our options don’t stop there. Our pain is our God-given ministry to the world, yes, but that also plays out in our individual relationships. This is where we open ourselves up, get real, get personal and get involved in someone else’s story.
Jesus can heal us in a way that doesn’t leave our wound numb to the touch. His restoration is complete and the healed injury remains soft and alive. That means we still feel it. We feel it enough to meet another suffering soul where they are and we can say two of the most powerful words that exist: “Me too.”
We can crawl into the pain of others and bring with us the Spirit of Christ and the testimony of what He has done for us. Support with hope. Comfort with confidence. Presence with promise.
Make no mistake. This is not easy. I’ve gotten several tearful calls over the last couple of weeks of marriages falling apart. And as I move into the mess with them, I remember my own broken heart. It’s scary, but if you speak from it and from the healing that’s been applied to it, it becomes gold in God’s economy.
Okay, hang with me. This isn’t going to be fun, but work with me for a minute. You want to know part of your life’s purpose? Take this little quiz:
What is the worst thing that has ever happened in your life? What is your most painful memory? Maybe it’s a dark secret that nobody knows, and you like it that way. Maybe it’s a distinctive moment that cut your life in half, pre-trauma and post-trauma. Maybe it was a lingering struggle that went on for years, shaping and misshaping your soul. Maybe it’s still happening.
Whatever your greatest source of pain, therein lies your power. As Brad says, that’s your sweet spot. That’s where your ministry will come from, if you let it.
Don’t deny your pain. Don’t try to forget it or numb it. And for heaven’s sake, DON’T WASTE IT. It was not for nothing. It all counted. It all mattered. Own it. Take hold of it. Make it work for you and others who so desperately need understanding, hope and healing of their own. Take the twelfth step.
Offer your pain as a sacrifice on the altar of God’s magnificent plan. Use the power of your pain as a guiding light to those whose eyes are dimmed by heart-breaking circumstances.
And the beautiful thing is, as you offer your difficult truth to help heal others, God will continue to heal you. That’s when it all comes full circle.
And then you’ll realize that somewhere in the mess of blood, sweat and tears and your own pain mingled with the pain of another, your broken life was turned into a masterpiece that will hang on the wall of eternity.
