Chronic
by Peter Frank
My shoulders ache today and I don’t know why. Yesterday it was my lower back. Several years ago, I had a headache that lasted for three months.
I have chronic, mostly unexplained, pain and have for years.
Worse, my chronic pain has a companion: shame.
I go to doctors. I talk to AI about it (not necessarily trustworthy, but definitely affirming). I have tried a half-dozen different drugs that are supposed to help but probably haven’t. I am currently on my fourth run through physical therapy. I call my counselor. I complain to my wife. Many times nothing seems to move the needle.
On a good day, I can kind of almost forget about it. On a bad day, the pain is a bit like the One Ring as Frodo and Sam climb Mount Doom; a wheel of fire that fills my sight.
It just goes on and on.
I’m a pastor. It turns out that chronic pain, along with ailments in general, isn’t uncommon among pastors. A lot of us hurt.
Most of the time, we do it quietly. There isn’t much upside to talking about your weakness as a pastor unless you can show how God has powerfully resolved it, or at the very least how your faith has been strengthened on the journey.
I can’t do either. Worse, my chronic pain has a companion: shame. I’m the guy who stands up in front of people and speaks words like “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8.28) without being sure they are true for me. I’m even the guy who, a few times in my ministry, has been privileged to pray prayers for healing over others and seen them answered. Healing is beautiful. But at the same time, there in minor key, is a note of bitterness for me. Why not me God? “Physician, heal thyself…” (Luke 4.23)
I also suspect I am not alone in this. A lot of us in ministry carry stories of desolation that are hard to tell and harder still to live openly. They seem incompatible with our work. We lead people who look to us for encouragement, meaning, and hope.
But I think it’s important for us (for me) to try to tell them, to live them in the light; for ourselves, and for others. One of the hardest things about desolation is the overwhelming sense that we are alone there. One of the saddest things I see happen as a pastor (and I see this a lot) is how suffering people can come to the conclusion that insofar as they are broken, insofar as like the disciple Thomas they “do not know the way,” they are out of place in a Christian community (John 14.5).
Like an old photo negative, that is an opposite image of Jesus’ church. “It is not the healthy that need a doctor.” (Mark 2.17). “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden.” (Matthew 11.28). Yet the negative is a believable image for many when we who lead keep our own desolations, our own crying, unresolved needs, in the dark.
Chronic pain is my dark thing.
So, chronic pain is my dark thing. Writing it down is exposing it to a little bit of the light. My hope, what’s left of it, is that some day, some how, some thing, someone will carry this cross for me. But if that’s not in the cards, it seems important to carry it where it can be seen.
Until then, come Lord Jesus.
The Rev. Peter Frank is the Rector of Church of the Epiphany in Chantilly, VA.
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