Prayer and Pain

Read Psalm 23
¹ The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
³     he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
    for his name’s sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
    I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff—
    they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely^[e] goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    my whole life long.

 

 

                If you divided all the pain of the world evenly, Lord, I think it would turn out that I have had less than my share.  However, pain and I are not strangers.  I have had my times of mental and spiritual pain, and those times will come again.  Moreover, I have had my times of physical pain, and as the years roll on I know those times are likely to increase in frequency and intensity.

                I want to be among those who bear pain well, and I pray that the right kinds of faith and understanding and courage will be in me when I need them.

                When pain comes to me, help me to remember:

¨   At any given moment, I never have more than that one moment of pain to handle.  I may dread the total pain an hour or a week represents, but it is not as if I will ever have to meet head-on the accumulated burden.  I experience this moment of pain now and then the next moment of pain. I never experience more than the present moment of pain.

¨   Pain does not have to be a useless, destructive experience, a time-out from productive living.  It can be a training ground on which I learn lessons of sympathy, humility, patience, and fortitude.  It has been that for others; it can be that for me.

¨   My pain can be a redemptive, ennobling experience for those who know and love me if I bear it in such a way that they see in me a glimpse of the strength of the human spirit.

¨   I can look upon the way I bear my pain, and the kind of witness I make by the way I bear it, as an offering I am making to you -- an offering I want to be a worthy offering.

Amen.