One Thing To Help The Pain

One Thing To Help The Pain

Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing. –Philippians 2:4

The week after Hope died, I was sitting on the couch reading a book by a man who had lost a child. He wrote, “There’s only one thing I’ve found that helps with the pain.” You would have thought I was in the desert and he was telling me where to find water. I wanted to skip ahead. I wanted to know, What is it that will soothe this enormous ache inside me? Then I read it: “serving others.” Honestly, I felt disappointed. That’s it? I thought. A part of me said he was just a preacher who was giving me the party line. But I also thought that someone who has hurt like he had hurt would not lie to me about where to find comfort. And so even though I didn’t really believe him, I decided to put what he said to the test. I was desperate.

My friend Angela had just moved into a house in our neighborhood. The house had been empty for a while. The landscaping was badly in need of attention, and I knew she, as a widow, was overwhelmed with moving into a new house. So we loaded up our lawn tools and went to her house. We pulled weeds and trimmed hedges—and we wept, for ourselves and for her. As I exerted energy in serving someone else, and more significantly, as I thought about what it was like for her to move away from the home she had lived in with her husband to set up a new home without him, my focus moved from my pain to hers. And it was a relief. It was a distraction. It was an outlet. It was a step toward healing. That day I discovered the secret of serving for myself.

You may be skeptical as I was. But would you consider putting this to the test? Some people have told me they simply can’t start reaching out to other people until their load of grief lightens. But it is the reaching out to others in the midst of your pain, uniquely because of your pain, that is the secret to lightening your unbearable load. You can keep sitting around waiting to feel better, or you can get up, look around, and seek out someone to serve. Prove me wrong on this. I dare you.

I am overwhelmed with my pain, Lord, and I find it hard to believe that I could find the strength to serve someone else or that it would make any difference. But I want to step out in faith, believing you will meet me there and ease my pain.

DIGGING DEEPER