“When I think of pain—of anxiety that gnaws like fire and loneliness that spreads out like a desert, and the heartbreaking routine of monotonous misery, or again of dull aches that blacken our whole landscape or sudden nauseating pains that knock a man’s heart out at one blow, of pains that seem already intolerable and then are suddenly increased, of infuriating scorpion-stinging pains that startle into maniacal movement a man who seemed half dead with his previous tortures—it ‘quite o’ercrows my spirit’.” – C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

C.S. Lewis knows the kinds of pain we experience on a daily basis: the guilt pain when we’ve done wrong, the breaking pain when we must quench our pride and replace it with selflessness, the physical pain when the laws of this world offend our body’s homeostasis, the sinking pain of regret, the emotional pain of losing part or all of a relationship, and the spiritual pain of being altered by our Creator. I’m not sure that there’s a precise definition of pain other than we know it when we feel it and it’s never fun. Sometimes we can look past pain to a greater goal, but that doesn’t diminish what the pain actually is; sometimes we can shift focus our focus from the pain, but it remains.

When different types of pain cohabitate in us, they do not simply add to each other; that is to say our total pain is the sum of all the pains we bear, rather they multiply each other. When a single soul must carry the pains of guilt, loss, brokenness and bodily hurt, the soul’s misery is far more than the sum of the parts.

I began to understand through this relationship that pain is not something that we can all consciously rid ourselves of, just as we cannot convince ourselves that we are not in love. Pain, like love (or light, or any number of other things), is not rational. I was talking to a friend today who said that he knew there must be a God, but it just didn’t seem to make sense and he didn’t know why but he just couldn’t go there. As humans we try to always be rational and only do things or believe in things that make sense. We don’t want to ever come across as irrational because we’re afraid we’ll be dragged off to an institution for defying what seems to make sense. Most guys are afraid of crying because crying seems irrational. Crying is the outward expression of internal pain – usually very real and serious pain. We all know that pain isn’t rational, and most men don’t want to be labeled as irrational, so we try to suppress the outward expression of our pain. Some people don’t want to believe in God because God doesn’t seem to be rational or scientifically explained. You can’t cut open a brain and see a seat for emotional pain. We can explain certain things about pain through science, but there are myriads of aspects that will never be explained through rational thinking simply because pain is not rational.

Being miserable sucks. Having several kinds of pain all multiplying and playing off each other is about the worst feeling in the world. The way pain works is horrific too: you can have pain for losing good friends, but then what do you do with that pain? You can’t express it to your friends, because they’re gone. In a relationship you learn to share pain with your partner, but when that relationship must end and the emptiness sets in, you have no idea what to do with it. For the entire length of the relationship you’ve trained yourself to share the pain with your partner, so when the pain of loss rears its ugly head, you have no idea what to do with it. That’s why most breakups are so hard.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28)

“Come to me. . . . The invitation is to come to him. Why him? He offered the invitation as a penniless rabbi in an oppressed nation. He had no political office, no connections with the authorities in Rome. He hadn’t written a bestseller or earned a diploma. Yet, he dared to look at the leathery faces of farmers and tired faces of housewives and offer rest. He looked into the disillusioned eyes of a preacher or two from Jerusalem. He gazed at the cynical stare of a banker and the hungry eyes of a bartender and made this paradoxical promise: ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’ (Matt. 11:29). The people came. They came out of the cul-de-sacs and office complexes of their day. They brought him the burdens of their existence, and he gave them not religion, not doctrine, not systems, but rest.

As a result, they called him Lord.

As a result, they called him Savior.

Not so much because of what he said, but because of what he did.

What he did on the cross during six hours, one Friday.” – Max Lucado Give it All to Him

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Michael Jordan is a music student at the University of North Texas and writes in his spare time. He blogs (irregularly) at http://www.mikeyj.net Listen for his upcoming CD release in 2007!