Pain in the Body
Ecclesiastes 3:4 “a time to weep”
Romans 12:15 “Weep with those who weep”
Almost nine years ago our family met with three or four other families. While I sat and listened to one of the men I felt an overwhelming pain in the room. I couldn’t concentrate on anything being said because the pain was so intense. I thought I knew where the pain was coming from. I toyed with the idea of saying something to the woman I suspected of being the source. But I didn’t. After all, I didn’t know her very well. Suppose I was wrong. I would embarrass both of us. So I said nothing. Within three months she and her husband had separated, followed by a bitter divorce.
I saw the woman later in a parking lot. I approached her car, wanting to simply say I was sorry and was praying for her. She barely rolled the window down, obviously did not want to talk to me. What did she think I was going to say?
I hesitate to share the next story. I am by nature a private person. I am not of the Facebook generation, posting a detailed account of each moment of my life, along with the accompanying angst. But I feel compelled to be vulnerable with you and I fear it. You see, by its nature, vulnerability is dangerous, risky. Vulnerability may open me to more pain, to misunderstandings. Vulnerability means I must trust you.
Almost eight years ago my children and I left home, fleeing an abusive situation that culminated in my husband’s declaration that God had told him to kill me and my children. We fled for protection. I was overwhelmed with grief at this ending of a twenty-five-year marriage. My life was agony.
I experienced a myriad of reactions to my leaving home. There were a few who told me I was utterly wrong to leave, that I was commanded to stay in my marriage, even if it cost my life. One woman invited me out to eat, only to spend the entire lunch reading me Scripture about God’s command to me to be a submissive wife. Fortunately the ones like that were few. Many more offered support, even if they did not understand. Many took the same route I had taken just a year earlier, choosing to stay silent.
Those first months I was paralyzed by sorrow. I had avoided people’s eyes before I left home, afraid they would see the pain I felt revealed in my eyes. After I left home, my eyes betrayed me for they were continually full of tears. I cried through every church service. One day I received a note from Carol Pappas. I didn’t really know her; we spoke when we passed and that is all. But Carol’s note said, “I saw your tears today, and if I saw your tears, how much more did the dear Lord Jesus.” I will never forget Carol because of what that one note meant to me.
One couple in the church told me that when they heard, they dropped to their knees by the bed and cried for me and prayed for me.
Others spoke encouraging words and when I cried at their words, apologized, saying, “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” They didn’t understand that I cried because I felt someone cared.
As I said, some took the same route I had taken a year before when I felt the other woman’s pain. They simply said nothing. I do not fault them for I have done the same many times.
There are many kinds of pain in the body. Last fall my mother died and members of the body wept with me. Mom’s death was followed by Marvin Euler’s, Dan Dilts’, Carol Pappas’, Tammy Evans’. Many of our members are weeping because of a loved one’s death.
Others weep in illness: Debbie Darling’s mother, Trish Tweedie’s parents, Tina Holcomb’s young niece. Many of our members weep because of physical pain.
Whatever the cause of the pain, many of our members are weeping. My own experience has taught me and is teaching me to weep with those who weep, to mourn with those who mourn. Our body is hurting.
I Corinthians 12:25, 27 “If one member (of the body) suffers, all the members suffer with it. . . . You are Christ’s body and individual members of it.”
~~Faith Himes Lamb
