Pain itself is isolating. 

Even when people who care about me check in, even with a loving husband who goes out of his way to make things easier for me, the pain can make me feel alone.

It feels like a barrier between me and the world, and trying to express to others what that barrier feels like feels like complaining. 

I read once that for others your pain grows old.  “Did you say that yesterday? Yes, I know it hurts.” But for you it’s always new.

One of the things that is hardest for me to describe is the difficulty of working in this pain.  Those minutes before the alarm goes off, as I lay there taking mental inventory of every muscle that is screaming at me, and I think “I can’t do it again.  I can’t make myself get up.”  But the alarm goes off, and I do.  And it doesn’t feel heroic.  It just feels hard.  The mental fog of pain in the morning as I try to get the kids and myself out the door with all our lunches and computer cords and important signed notes for the teacher and the violin, to remember to put the crock pot on so we will have dinner, and how often I forget something.  The moments after I drop the kids off and there is that short drive without them and I try to think through the day and sometimes I just cry.

Then there’s my planning period.  I finally make it through most of the day and I can finally sit down.  I have papers to grade and personal phone calls to make (usually to my doctor), and all I can do is just sit for the 49 minutes and try not to think about the pain or the fatigue or the nausea or the whatever symptom has popped up today.

Telling you these experiences feels wrong.  It feels like complaining.  It feels like asking for your pity.  But how can I let others behind the barrier of pain if I don’t describe it?  It’s not complaining to state where you are in life.

It’s hard to get up every morning despite how much pain I am in and get ready for work.  It’s hard to focus on staff meetings in pain.  It’s hard to walk around the building when my right leg is hurting so bad. It’s hard to deal with difficult students when my body is so fatigued, I am barely standing up.  It’s hard to teach a lesson when I just threw up between classes. It’s hard to say no to every single activity in the evenings of my work week because I know I have to go to work the next morning and I don’t have enough “spoons” for that. It’s hard explaining why I can’t do those things. 

I love the Lord.  I see His goodness in my life.  I know He has brought me through things I never imagined I could survive. I feel His peace even in the midst of the chaos of the pain.  I trust Him even when it doesn’t make sense. 

Both of those previous paragraphs are true. But sometimes there is a toxic positivity in the church that wants me to get to the second paragraph so fast I’m not allowed to say the first.  Lest I be seen as negative and complaining.

Friends, I know the barrier of pain that isolates me.  But I may not know the barrier of pain that isolates you.  It may be grief or depression. It may be divorce or miscarriage. It may be financial worries. It may be that life hasn’t turned out the way you thought.  Whatever barrier of pain that makes you feel alone, I want to know about it.  I want to know if there is a way I can get behind that barrier and sit with you in it.  If you tell me about it, it’s okay.  I still know you trust in God.  I still know your faith is strong, even if you say aloud it’s hard.

Pain itself is isolating.  Let’s not allow the idea that speaking our struggles aloud is somehow sinful to make it even more so.