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    Life's a Pain
    Life's a Pain
    Life's a Pain
    Ebook115 pages1 hour

    Life's a Pain

    By Todd Rettberg

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    About this ebook

    Life's a Pain! But God has treasures to impart through it. As a pastor who suffers from chronic pain himself, Todd Rettberg knows what it can do to people and families. With straight talk, humor and compassion, he shows Christians how to find God in the midst of suffering.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrossLink Publishing
    Release dateDec 12, 2012
    ISBN9781393822868
    Life's a Pain

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      Book preview

      Life's a Pain - Todd Rettberg

      Chapter One

      The Journey Begins

      It hurts, it hurts, take it away!

      He is laying on the bed in fetal position, both hands clasped tightly around his head. He just wants the pain to go away; it’s more than he can endure. It is throbbing on the entire right side of his skull. He is too young to have any idea what it is or why it seems to jump up and grab him suddenly. But he’s sure he can’t survive it much longer. If he had the words, he might liken it to being hit with a two-by-four. To his five-year-old mind, this headache is the worst thing anyone could possibly experience.

      His mother comes in periodically to give him some aspirin and lay a cool cloth on his head, trying desperately to soothe his pain. Within a few hours it will ease, and the little boy will fall fast asleep, awaking the next morning with only a memory of the terrible night before. Little does he know that this is just the beginning of a lifelong journey—a journey of pain.

      He can’t know that he will not only have those throbbing headaches the rest of his days—but that they will become much more severe, to the point of dominating his life. He only knows that waking up without a headache is the greatest thing ever. Having pain only occasionally is like icing on the cake.

      Looking back on the little boy that was me, I have to smile. It brings back great memories of living in a wonderful house with two great parents and one brother. (For a while, I thought he was the reason my head hurt so much, but realized later that he was actually a pretty good older brother!)

      The overwhelming and permanent nature of the pain that has become such a defining part of my adult life was not even a thought in that child’s mind. But pain has been a part of the human experience for as long as we have been walking around in God’s amazing creation. Though that young boy could not comprehend it then, the man writing this book knows it all too well.

      Many people today do not want to acknowledge that pain exists; they’d rather ignore it and hope it goes away. Some imagine that if they simply keep a positive attitude, pain will not enter their reality. There is a sense, especially prevalent in American culture, that we are entitled to an easy life and shouldn’t have to face pain. We’re actually surprised when it occurs: How in the world could God allow this in my life?

      One problem is that our perspective is clouded by all the blessings we have. Pain doesn’t fit within the mental framework that insists we deserve to be blessed. This view, of course, makes it difficult for us to understand the truth: Not only does pain exist; it has been promised to us. God has made clear throughout the Scriptures that we will have pain, it is part of life, and we should not be surprised by it. If that bothers you, take it up with Adam and Eve, whose sin brought pain and suffering into the world!

      A Survey of Suffering

      Let’s take a quick survey of the men and women described in the Bible who endured pain. Start with that first couple, who sinned and then heard God pronounce their sentence, beginning with Adam:

      Cursed is the ground because of you;

      through painful toil you will eat of it

      all the days of your life.

      It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

      and you will eat the plants of the field.

      By the sweat of your brow

      you will eat your food (Gen. 3:17-19).

      From that day on, Adam’s vocation was one of hard manual labor—which farmers are familiar with to this day. Do you think he might have experienced some back pain or arthritis?

      Eve didn’t get off any easier:

      I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing,

      with pain you will give birth to children (Gen. 3:16).

      God mentioned pain to Eve twice, just to emphasize the point.

      And that was just the physical pain. After that they had to endure their exile from the garden, and the murder of their son by his own sibling. This is suffering at a level few of us will ever have to face.

      How about King David—that guy who was a man after God’s own heart? In between battles, he endured horrible personal struggles, and they weren’t only spiritual:

      Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am faint;

      O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony (Psalm 6:2).

      In several places David describes harrowing physical ordeals that presage the ultimate suffering of Christ on the cross:

      I am poured out like water,

      and all my bones are out of joint.

      My heart has turned to wax;

      it has melted away within me.

      My strength is dried up like a potsherd,

      and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

      you lay me in the dust of death (Psalm 22: 14-15).

      Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;

      my eyes grow weak with sorrow,

      my soul and my body with grief.

      My life is consumed by anguish,

      and my years by groaning;

      my strength fails because of my affliction,

      and my bones grow weak (Psalm 31:9, 10).

      When I kept silent my bones wasted away

      through my groaning all day long.

      For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

      my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer (Psalm 32:3, 4).

      In these cases, David associated his pain with sin—something that doesn’t apply in every situation, needless to say. And like anyone dealing with physical ailments, he was very specific in his complaints:

      Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;

      my bones have no soundness because of my sin . . .

      My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly . . .

      My back is filled with searing pain;

      there is no health in my body . . .

      My heart pounds, my strength fails me;

      even the light has gone from my eyes.

      My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds

      (Psalm 38: 3, 5, 7, 10, 11).

      On top of these physical trials, David faced all the heartaches of living in a sinful world. His child died at birth. His son raped his own sister; another son tried to take over his kingdom, eventually being killed in the process. Can you sense the incredible pain that he must have endured? You might think well, he caused this by his own sin. True, but we are all guilty of sin. If God gave us what we deserve, you would not be reading this right now—and I would never have written it.

      Consider our buddy Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers and spent years in prison—even though he was innocent. He suffered for a large portion of his life, simply because he was trying to serve God.

      We haven’t even mentioned the suffering endured by the original apostles, or Paul, who lived for years with a thorn in his flesh that God refused to take away. (I have come to believe, by the way, that Paul’s thorn was actually severe migraines. I have no proof, but it comforts me!)

      Yes, pain is an inextricable part of the believer’s landscape.

      If you’re still not convinced, let’s take a snapshot of the world today. We have more advanced medical technology and ways to help people than ever before. Yet pain and suffering persist throughout the world. Millions of children die each year of starvation, millions more from treatable diseases such as dysentery, mosquito-borne illnesses, and common flu. Cancer claims victims by the thousands, taking parents from their children, or even worse, children from their parents. This is pain at the deepest levels.

      Are you convinced yet?

      What about the pain of divorce that occurs every day all around us? Most people are familiar with the now-popular adage that half of all American marriages end in divorce. Is it true? The issue is complicated by the fact that some people are serial divorcers, and skew the statistics upward. But some figures remain remarkably consistent: According to the most recent National Vital Statistics Report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 7 out of every 1,000 people will marry in any given year. How many will divorce? About 3.5 out of every 1,000—roughly half the marriage rate.

      Many of those divorces involve children that will have to choose between one parent and the other. Then, they’ll have to adjust to having a second mom or dad in the picture. And as anyone familiar with the church knows, believers are not exempt from these trends.

      Pain on Patrol

      Some time ago, I decided to become a police chaplain, which requires special training. In the course of pursuing this new avocation, I have been privileged to go on a few ride-alongs with local police patrol units. It’s a very rewarding experience; I

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