“Two hundred times. She’s pressed her pain button over two hundred times in the last hour”, I said to my preceptor as we heard the agonal groans and shrieks from the door of the room. Our patient, straight out of back surgery for a disk removal in her spine, had been rolled into our empty ICU room with cries of dereliction and utter despair. Dosing her with some quick IV morphine, we then connected her to a PCA (Patient Controlled Analgesic) pump. This pump allows the patient to press a button to deliver herself a dose of pain medication, with time intervals between each available dose. If she presses the button multiple times before the time interval is up, there is no additional dose given: just a “beep” sound. Thus we heard “beep, beep, beep”, second after second, coupled with her howls, the sounds of suffering layered into a symphony of wailing for the remainder of our shift. Despite our best efforts, pain surged and resurged up her back as she rent the air with her screams. Being baptized in the fires of her affliction, there was nothing we could do to fish her out of her current state. Her pain was visceral and unstoppable, like napalm, promising to burn until she breathed her last.

Having only recently begun a career in the ICU, I’ve already become well-acquainted with complaints of pain. The pain is usually acute, confined to a temporary circumstance. Often, though, it’s chronic pain or “acute-on-chronic” pain. For instance, with the above woman, her pain would be classified as “acute-on-chronic” because she had a longstanding history of chronic spine and back issues (which are some of the most painful chronic issues to deal with) coupled with the acute pain brought on by corrective surgery. Acute pain is usually more severe than chronic pain, so we normally think of it as worse than chronic pain. When we think this, however, we don’t consider that chronic pain remains with the patient for the rest of his or her life. Day after day, night after night.

Chronic pain affects the life of a person in manifold ways: physically, emotionally and spiritually. The physical problem is usually the progenitor of the spiritual and emotional problems. Some of the spiritual problems chronic pain produces for the individual and for the community of believers as well include the puzzles of theodicy (why God permits suffering), sovereignty (God’s will and choice in the person’s life), and ultimately theology (God’s character).

Chronic Illness in “The Story of Two Daughters”

It’s important to note, from a medical standpoint, that chronic pain is often related to chronic illness; the two go hand in hand. More importantly, God responds to both in Scripture.

We find one such place in “The Story of Two Daughters”. In Mark 5 (as well as Matthew 9 and Luke 8), we see a story of Jesus’ healing that is unique among the miracle stories of scripture for this reason: we find a meta-story involving a miracle that gets “interrupted” by another miracle story. It’s a story within a story. And it’s the “lesser” or “non-grandiose” story we want to see here to comment on chronic pain and illness.

Our story begins with Jesus swept up into a high profile case. Jesus arrives by boat across the sea of Galilee and is thronged, swamped by the masses. Among those coming to Jesus, we are told that Jairus the ruler of the synagogue (a “main elder”) comes and bows down, even worshiping Jesus (according to Matthew’s account), asking him to save his daughter who is at the point of death. Jesus assents, and begins to follow Jairus. This is a high-profile case. The Healer rushes to this medical emergency for one of the most prominent men of the community. Excitement and tension build as he moves.

The physical problem is usually the progenitor of the spiritual and emotional problems.

– Daniel Lopez

Suddenly, Jesus stops. A few disciples bump into one another as their entourage screeches to a halt. Just imagine Peter grunting: “What gives?” Jesus, “immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’” This question is almost laughable, as the disciples effectively wave their hands at the crowd and say “You see the crowds and ask who touched you?” It is strange that Jesus stops here because it is understood that He heals people all the time with a touch of his clothes (Luke 6:19, Matt 14:36, Mark 6:56) and because there can be little way to match the touch to the person. But Jesus wants us to see the importance of a certain invisible woman.

Invisible woman? Yes, invisible. Having a bloody flow for 12 years, she was considered unclean; anyone or anything that touched her was considered unclean. Hers was a forced invisibility, throwing shame at different temperatures upon her throughout her years. She was also poor, which we know because we’re told she spent all her money on doctors, suffering many things at their hands (according to Mark) and getting no better, only worse. This invisible woman was spending her life trying to buy back her status and in all of this, the best her efforts could buy for her were failure and invisibility.

The Invisibility of Chronic Illness

It’s important to stop here and consider how this relates to persons with chronic illness and chronic pain. What factors contribute to the “invisibility” of those suffering from chronic pain and illness in our community? In the ancient Jewish community, they were considered unclean. Today, we don’t know how to sit in suffering with individuals and be uncomfortable; we don’t have a good theology of suffering or lament. We generally think of suffering as limited to a season where you learn your spiritual lesson and then move on to the next season. We are afraid, and fear is also at the root of why the ancient Jewish community avoided this woman. The ancient Jewish community left this woman for God to deal with, which we rightly think of as harsh, but is that not what we are doing when we neglect to minister to God’s suffering sheep among us? (I’m speaking to myself here)

We need, by the grace of God and the work of His Spirit, to be able to do what Jesus did: stop and turn around. Face the uncomfortable. We’re all about the ministries of excellence and progress in our churches. Service to those with chronic pain or illness is not the sexiest ministry to take up: praying with no breakthrough, sitting with the hurting and having no answers for their pain (or rather, resisting the urge to give pat answers lest we become like Job’s friends), and doing this week after week, year after year. Healing is always a blessing, always a reverse to the curse, but let’s not twist this story into the false narrative that God’s power is worked out and known only by its immediate effect in healing. Let’s wonder instead that God, the highest profile being in the universe, stops to care for the most invisible people.

So, back to the story, Jesus stops and turns around: the accounts offer various perspectives of the same thing. In one account, he turns and sees the woman; in another, she “saw she was not hidden” which may speak to an astounding theological truth. This woman, standing before the Son of God (God incarnate if you understand the claim of the Scriptures) could not be hidden from the One who made her. The Word by Whom the worlds were made stared into the crowd, perceiving each and every one of the creatures whom He had formed, and in the face of the Logos this woman saw she was not hidden.

We need, by the grace of God and the work of His Spirit, to be able to do what Jesus did: stop and turn around. Face the uncomfortable.

– Daniel Lopez

Then, with fear and trembling “she fell down before Him”. For me, this moment of exposure, filled with trembling, hearkens back to another who himself stood before God the Father: Isaiah, standing before the Lord, cried, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Is. 6:5). Isaiah became undone in a moment, but this woman had spent years becoming undone: in the middle of the night, atop her bed, in the throes of panic and despair at her lot in life, trying to drown her sorrows in the forgetfulness of sleep. Picture her reciting Psalm 88, “You [God] have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; darkness is my only friend” (Ps. 88:18), and the host of other Psalms of Lament, crying out with no physical progress, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1) She has, like Jacob, wrestled with God in the night, walking away wounded but still throwing herself on the Rock of Ages. We have so much to learn from those who suffer long!

The Ministry of Presence

Jesus then does the unthinkable: He blesses the unclean woman for touching Him. He blesses her for the faith she holds. He makes a proclamation: “Go in peace and be healed” (Mark 5:34). He gives her a benediction (literally: “a good word”). How do we follow Christ’s example here with our words? For us this probably means the simple, often awkward, sitting with and hurting with and being with, saying “I’m so sorry” even though you’ve never experienced this kind of pain yourself. This means acknowledging with them the long haul that lies ahead and trembling to think about how broken all of this is and being dumbstruck at our inability to make sense of holy God and sitting and allowing the good work of God to take place in the hands and feet of His body, the church, tangibly touching those who are chronically hurting.

With the tenderness of Christ and the empowerment of the Spirit, consider practical ways to assist those who are suffering from chronic pain or illness. Church Health Magazine’s 2019 Winter issue focuses solely on this topic, offering suggestions like sending cards, hosting a support group, making dinner or getting them a coffee, offering to come over and pray, taking their kids off their hands for an afternoon, doing their laundry, paying for a house cleaner, and erring “on the side of coming near and being made a fool…Sometimes the suffering person needs space. But mostly they want to be met where they hurt. Practice the ministry of presence” (Sampson, p. 21).

Finally, having spoken with several persons dealing with chronic pain, they report unanimously the least helpful thing you can do is offer them advice. Our well intentioned advice and suggestions (oils, ointments, herbs, medications, miracle treatments, etc.) may do nothing more than expose our own lack of vision for God’s power to take place in long-suffering and lack of wonder at God’s presence through a lifetime of suffering. In short: stop and turn around; sit and weep with those suffering from chronic pain and illness. Get uncomfortable, and love the least of these.