The Thief of Pain

I actually wrote a very similar version of this piece exactly eleven years ago this week. At that time, I had a herniated disc that was absolutely horrendous in terms of pain. Up to that point, I had never experienced that kind of pain in my life. 

As we look to Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday this weekend, it seemed appropriate to dust it off and freshen it up a bit, not only for myself, but hopefully as a reminder for others.

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It's amazing how fast the walls close in when you're in pain, whether mentally, emotionally, or physically. Whatever form it may be, it can be all-consuming when you've been gutted by grief and loss.

This time one year ago ushered in some of the very darkest, most miserable days of my life.  

Grief, loss, and pain were consuming thoughts.  

I would wake up and think about them.   

I would sit at the kitchen table and think about them. 

I would brush my teeth and think about them.

I would go to bed at night and think about them.  

I would walk and think about them.  

I would breathe and think about them.  

Every waking moment was spent thinking about myself, this hurt, and how to escape it.  I lost track of the number of mental and emotional breakdowns I had, which usually resulted in me in a fetal position on my temporary bed at my parents' house, sobbing, barely able to breathe.

I just wanted it all to go away, telling myself it must be some sort of bad dream.

Ultimately, all I did was think about myself for days on end.

I forgot that a world around me existed or that anyone else around me might be in worse shape.  I did nothing but live in my own little bubble, inside my own little head, unable to see past the end of my own nose and the yawning vortex stretched out before me that had become my life practically overnight.

Looking back on those days and months, I now keep thinking about Jesus, hanging on the cross, in sheer agony and suffering, in the kind of pain that makes mine look like a bucketful of sunshine and rainbows.  And the one fact I simply cannot escape is this:

Even in the face of his impending mortal death, even in his deepest moment of torture and agony, Jesus still noticed the thief next to him.  

Consider this: Think about the worst pain you ever have been in - mentally, emotionally, or physically.  Now multiply that times a hundred. My guess is you didn't care about the rest of the world at that moment. 

But then there's Jesus. 

Pure selflessness even while in agony.  Spikes driven into his hands, spear drawn through his side, a crown of thorns mashed onto his head, blood freely pouring out from seven places.  His back looks like hamburger meat.  His lungs are failing because he can't lift himself up enough to get a breath.  And somehow - somehow - he still manages to notice the man crucified next to him, as noted in Luke 23:39-43:

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at [Jesus]: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal rebuked him.  "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong."    

Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."  

Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." 

Here's what I find so startling in that moment: 

Jesus noticed the thief.

In that moment, when in his humanity he could have easily ignored either man hanging beside him, when he could have easily said, "Just get me off this cross and make it all go away," he turns to the thief and says, "I notice you.  This is the very reason why I came - was to notice you.  You are not forgotten.  And today you will be with me in paradise."

How many moments have I missed along the way in the midst of all this pain?  How often have I let it eclipse all thought of others around me and their own sorrowing and suffering, or even their joy and gladness?  Here in this season of Lent and Passover, here in this season of giving up in order to gain, here in this season of turning our eyes to the cross - how often did I miss the person next to me?

Jesus knew even on the cross, even in his worst pain, that the pain he was enduring was never about him.

It was about the thief next to him.

And the miracle of miracles is that Jesus still notices the thief and the criminal in me today, the girl who wants to rob the world in order to escape her own pain, the girl who is far too often so very self-absorbed.  

And he still turns to me and says, "Today, today, I notice you. I notice you in your grief, loss, and pain."

I want to be like Jesus.  

I want to turn and notice the world around me, no matter my own pain, no matter my own heartache.  

I don't want to get so myopic that all I do is focus on what's right in front me - and forget that this pain is temporary.  I don't want to forget that someday I'll get to trade it all in, and stand in the light of God's glory, right next to the thief Jesus noticed on the cross next to him over 2,000 years ago.

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."  2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Praise God Sunday's coming.