When Pain Opens Our Eyes

If you’ve been following along this summer, you know that I’ve been reading The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. I’ve been using it as a weekly devotional, something to chew on throughout the week. Interestingly enough, each week so far has felt like a mini prep for what the week ahead would bring personally.

One of the things I’ve appreciated most about reading this classic is realizing that Lewis is a back-door point-maker. Haha. He begins with a story that really isn’t the point at all!

Such was the case this week. Letter V opens with Screwtape chastising Wormwood for feeling victorious about encouraging war. It turns out the chapter isn’t about war at all; it’s merely the backdrop. Instead, Lewis writes about suffering and the surprising way God uses it to accomplish His purposes. To Screwtape’s dismay, suffering turns people’s thoughts toward eternity. Comfortable people are often content to live as though this world is all there is, but suffering interrupts that illusion.

As I pondered this, I couldn’t help but think of my late mom.

My mother battled illness for most of my life. If I’m honest, there were years when her pain made her angry. Truth be told, sometimes her suffering made me angry, too! Pain has a way of doing that. It can make us impatient, frustrated, and often difficult to live with. As a little girl, I didn’t understand what chronic suffering does to a person. I simply knew Mom wasn’t always the mom I wished she could be.

But thankfully, by God’s grace and endless mercy, that wasn’t the end of her story.

As the years went on, something in her changed. The suffering that once hardened her heart began to soften it. Personally, I believe she was simply tired. Tired of suffering. Tired of pain. Tired of doctors, hospitals, surgeries, and needles. Yet even in her exhaustion and pain, she grew more reflective. More willing to talk about spiritual matters, and keenly more aware that life would eventually end.

The week before she died, my daughter and I sat beside her hospital bed and prayed with her. In that moment, my mom gave her life to Jesus.

That glorious afternoon has lingered with me over the past 12 years. I sometimes wonder whether she would have come to Christ without the suffering?

God only knows.

But one thing I do know: He refused to waste an ounce of it.

The truth is, suffering takes on countless forms. Not all of us battle chronic illness. Some carry the heartbreak of infertility. Others know the ache of a broken marriage, financial uncertainty, a prodigal child, loneliness, betrayal by someone they trusted, or grief that settles into everyday life after losing someone they love. None of us escapes some form of suffering; we simply experience it differently and face the same question:

Where will I turn?

Lewis reminds us that hell fears suffering for a reason. Because, you see, pain has a way of exposing what we believe, and what we’ve spent our lives trying to avoid or ignore. It reminds us that we are less self-sufficient and in control than we think. Instead, suffering strips away the illusion that this world is all there is and forces us to wrestle with questions that comfort rarely asks.

When turning to Scripture, we never find it pretending that suffering is pleasant. Instead, we discover a God who transforms suffering to significance.

The apostle Paul writes, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4). Notice Paul’s focus. He doesn’t tell us to rejoice because suffering is pleasant. No! Instead, He tells us what God is producing through it. Suffering essentially becomes the soil where endurance grows, character is refined, and hope flourishes.

Even in the Old Testament, we read that the psalmist looked back on his life, writing, “It was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71). I doubt he wrote those words in the midst of his sorrow. More likely, he saw in hindsight what God had accomplished through it.

Tim Keller taught that while suffering is never good in and of itself, God can weave it into His good purposes in ways we could never fathom. Looking back on my own life, I believe that is true. Some of the seasons that made the least sense at the time have become the very seasons when my faith grew the most.

Christian psychiatrist Curt Thompson has observed that suffering changes us by reshaping how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us. Scripture goes one step further, reminding us that we never suffer alone. In our deepest valleys, we walk with a Savior who voluntarily entered His own suffering long before we did and promises to be with us in ours.

This is what I rediscovered this week after reading Letter V.

The enemy isn’t afraid of suffering per se—he’s afraid of redeemed suffering.

He’s afraid the diagnosis might become the doorway to faith.

He’s afraid grief might loosen our grip on this world and tighten our grip on Jesus.

He’s afraid that the very thing meant to destroy us might become a catalyst for discovering God’s love and faithfulness.

Maybe you’re able to look back and see God’s hand in your suffering, or perhaps you’re still in the middle of the storm. If so, don’t be tempted to rush to explain away your pain or pretend it doesn’t hurt. And certainly don’t feel guilty if you can’t yet see what God is doing. Some lessons are learned by looking forward; others are understood only by looking back.

Remember this: Our suffering is never wasted in the sovereign hands of God. He has been redeeming broken things since Eden.

Your Sister in Christ,

Dawn