The Pain Cave

I have never been flexible. I have never been able to bend over and touch my toes. When I was in grade school, I remember being in a karate class and the instructor kept pushing on my back trying to force me to touch my toes. I was in tears because it hurt so bad, but no matter how hard he pushed it didn’t happen. I never touched my toes.

A few years ago, I kept getting injured at the gym and it was mostly due to my lack of mobility. So, I started to dig into what it would take to get my body to open up and become more limber.

Do you know what it involved? A lot of time being very uncomfortable. Or as Kelly Starrett says, “You gotta enter the pain cave to see any change.” So, I would spend a good chunk of each evening rolling around on lacrosse balls or getting my limbs into some crazy position on homemade props, or asking Tanya to apply pressure to some sensitive spot under my shoulder blade.

It was awful.

It hurt.

It wasn’t fun.

But as I spent time in the pain cave, I began to see tiny improvements. My shoulders began to open up. My lower back loosened up. My injuries started to heal. I never gained the ability to touch my toes, but I did see some improvement. I could finally touch my ankles.

We live in a pain adverse society. If something is unpleasant, we avoid it. I know I do. And if we can’t avoid it we make ourselves numb to it. Be it physical, mental, or emotional pain.

The past 18 months have been uncomfortable for all of us to varying degrees. For some much worse than others. For me, it has had amazing highs and terrible lows. On one hand, it was the most amazing year as we welcomed our first child, Soren, into this crazy world (who turns one next week!). On the other hand, it was the hardest year of my life career-wise. Pastoring through a worldwide pandemic, racial unrest, and a polarizing election cycle sucked. Like, really sucked. Like really, really, really sucked.

It was awful.

It hurt.

It wasn’t fun.

Truth be told I was close to hanging up my clerical collar and trading it in for my Hawaiian Trader Joe’s shirt. The move was very tempting. I’d just have to show up, stock the shelves, maybe deal with a few annoying customers and then go home and play with my baby boy. Oh, so tempting.

Then I got a job offer. Not to Trader Joe’s but to a different church. A new church in a new state with new responsibilities. I thought I had received my golden ticket. I had my out. I could start over. I could escape the pain cave.

If you are not familiar with my Lutheran tribe of Christianity, we don’t call it a job offer. The name we give it is The Call. As I sought counsel from older and wiser pastors, they kept telling me the call is never really about the call. I kept hearing how God often uses the call process to refine you, to weed out your heart, to cause you to check your motives. They all kept telling me how God had spoken to them clearly each time they went through the process. They kept telling me how the process was often hard and painful but good.

I thought they were crazy. This wasn’t going to be hard. This was going to be an easy choice.

Then I received the official call papers. I remember sitting in my home office as I opened the envelope that held my golden ticket to a new life.

I was expecting to feel excitement and relief rush through my body as I tore open the envelope.

But that isn’t what happened.

It was the oddest thing. Up to this moment in the process, I really hadn’t felt God’s presence in the process. I was praying and reading my Bible and asking God to lead me. But for whatever reason, I just hadn’t sensed his presence like others said they had. Then all of the sudden I felt his presence. It came in the form of a heaviness that settled on my heart and mind.

I felt the Lord saying, “Anthony, this isn’t about the call. This is about your heart and all of the anger, all of the pain, and all of the resentment you have been carrying around for the last year or so. It is time to deal with it.”

I sat there in my office and tears began to stream down my face. I took a couple of big breaths and began to confess the frustration and anger and pain I was holding onto in my heart towards humanity.

I realized that all the things I didn’t enjoy about my job or my lot in life were really about me, not anyone else. It was time to enter the pain cave.

I knew it was going to be awful.

I knew it was going to hurt.

I knew it wasn’t going to be fun.

But…

I trusted it was going to be for my good.

So, for the next three weeks, I entered the pain cave. I did the hard work of looking at my own heart. It involved some therapy. It involved candid conversations with the people I work with. It involved frank conversations between me and Tanya. It involved me being honest with myself. And you know what...

It wasn’t as awful as I thought it was going to be.

It wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be.

It was almost enjoyable at times.

And looking back it was good.

I am grateful that I didn’t avoid the pain cave. I am grateful that God didn’t allow me to run away from my circumstances or to live in the numbing daydream of what life could look like in greener pastures.  

Truth be told, I’m still not all the way through it. However, I am in a way healthier place than I was six months ago. I can say with confidence God has reaffirmed my current call to Water’s Edge and I am really looking forward to this next season of life and ministry here in North Texas.  

But I am still processing a lot of the last year and a half, just like you are. I want to encourage all of us to not run from the pain. The world encourages us to run away from it, to numb ourselves to it, or at best to just grin and bear it till it is over. How is that working for us as a species?

God on the other hand promises to be with us in the pain cave. The frustrating thing is that he doesn’t promise to take the pain away. But he does promise is to be with us in the midst of our pain. That is why one of the names used to describe God in the bible is Emmanuel which means God with us.

When we are in places of deep suffering due to a broken marriage or a forgotten dream or failing health or the loss of life itself…

God doesn’t tell us to run away or to buck up. No, God invites us to turn our gaze upwards. Towards his crucified son, our suffering servant. In Jesus, God stepped down into time and space and entered the pain cave for us and he is still with us.

It may feel awful.

It may hurt.

It may not be fun.

But I pray you can trust that it will be for your good.

Grace and peace ‘till we rise in glory.