If you are reading this, it might be because you are in pain. We all experience pain. Emotional pain, at the loss of a loved one, or pet. Physical pain, the kind that hits you behind the eyes or the back of the head. There is the pain of something wrong inside, an unknown, which causes worry as well as pain. What is it? Is it getting worse? How much pain can I take? Should I take medicine or go to the doctor?

There is spiritual pain, a loss, a broken heart, discouragement. Chronic pain might become the normal feeling if it is all you know. Then there is the pain after a surgery, waking up to levels of pain that are hard to describe. And later there is healing, a slow process with scars to remind. There are pains in our back and muscles and shoulders, pains in our knees and elbows. Sometimes there is the pain of coughing or sore throat. There are body aches from falls or crunching a finger. There is the pain that keeps you up at night, and the pain that isolates you.

Anyway, I hope you know you are not alone. Well, maybe it feels like we are alone. Just offering encouragement doesn't seem to cut it. Someone out there has endured more pain than I have, probably. It seems trite to downplay pain, as if we were humoring the one who is enduring it. It seems fair to say, I don't know how you feel right now. It must be tough. I won't say, it'll get better. I hope it will get better. Pain is self-centered for a reason. We know when we feel pain, and we know how bad it is, better than anyone else.

Time goes slowly when we feel pain. It is subjective. It is objective. On a scale of one to ten, give me a number. Eleven? A toothache pain, an earache pain, the pain of war and loss...

My purpose in writing this is dealing with pain in my own life. Admitting there is pain. Something freeing about that. Having known healing before, I acknowledge that healing is possible again. There is something strangely funny about the guy who wanted his tombstone to say, 'I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK'.

Maybe it is the fear of not being taken seriously. Hypochondriacs who let anything in their mind direct their body into places unknown. Or is it the other way around, your body directing your mind? And yet, I acknowledge that pain has deepended my appreciation for suffering, for empathy. And you are a survivor too?

I know pain a little. Pain when you move a certain way. The pain of a strained muscle. Now I will get to the part which is encouraging, I hope. I encourage you to rest. I encourage you to have a healthy diet. I encourage you to drink fluids. I encourage you to exercise. Me too.

I hope that you feel better. I hope that you heal. I hope that the pain will go away. There is a little healing for me in saying these things. Suffering is personal. Depression is hard. Life sucks sometimes.

I hope that if you or I have any bad health habits, that we can go in the direction of better health habits. I encourage you that your life and mine has a purpose. My hope is that you have ways to communicate that are healing. I will close with some prayers.

God, thank you for the life of the person reading this. Thank you for my life. Thank you for healing the pain. I trust you to heal the pain. I trust you to endure the pain with me right now. Help me to breathe in the Holy Spirit and breathe out pain. Breathe in the Holy Spirit and breathe out anxiety and worry. Breathe in the Holy Spirit and breathe out fear. Breathe in the Holy Spirit and breathe out anger and bitterness and hatred.

God, thank you for hearing my groans. Thank you for rest. You know every cell in my body, every tissue, every organ, every system. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Help me to listen to my body. Give me the freedom to be healed in the way you want.

Help me to encourage others who have suffered or are suffering.

In Jesus Name, Amen.