Does all Pain Serve a Purpose?

So, this is what I think: Not all pain has a purpose.

Seriously, I really don't think suffering always has a point; sometimes, it just is what it is.

I know that good, God-fearing Christians are supposed to believe that all pain is working towards some greater good, but I just don't think that's true. And I don't even think it's Biblical! (Shocking, perhaps.)

I recently was in a small group of women and confessed to feeling depressed, anxious, and having doubts that God was seeing me, that God cared about me -- and while they meant well and had nothing but the sweetest intentions, the majority of these women told me this: "God never gives you more than you can handle. All pain teaches you something, it all is for a reason. Don't ever doubt that."

Hmm.

I think we tell ourselves platitudes like this to help us make sense of pain or suffering, but coping with pain still doesn't acknowledge the pain in the first place. It's kind of a bandaid solution. "This is hard now, but just wait and see what God does." But can't situations be hard and that be the end of it? Why does God have to have some cosmic, eternal reasoning or justification for hardships? To think that God allows us to suffer is to believe that He wants us to suffer. And while of course I believe God could stop suffering, there's a difference between saying, "Hey, God hates that you suffer, and He suffers with you," and "God is allowing this to test you or make you stronger." Sometimes, I don't want to know that God is going to use my pain for a purpose, I just want to know that God is with me in the pain.

Let's look at Brother Job.

Job was angry with God, he wanted answers, he wanted to know WHY he was suffering because he was a good man who didn't deserve it. Job was righteous. He didn't do anything to deserve his children's deaths or the loss of his wealth and home and reputation. Everyone thinks he brought it on himself (karma is still something we use to make sense of misfortune, isn't it?) but Job genuinely had been a good man, for the most part. He didn't deserve the pain he was experiencing, and he certainly felt like he couldn't handle it. So when Job reaches the end of his rope, he is angry, peeved, annoyed, frustrated, lost, wounded. And it's in that moment that God FINALLY shows up, and our sweet, beautiful God doesn't give him an answer or an explanation -- He just gives Job Himself. Because that's the thing about pain: our suffering does not always have a point we need to look for, because the point is not that there's some cosmic lesson, the point is that when we suffer, God meets us there in the midst of the battlefield, He kisses our wounds, and He begins the hard work of healing with us.

We live in a broken, painful world, and none of us will make it out alive. There's bound to be some injuries along the way. Sometimes, there is no greater, deeper meaning -- sometimes, things just genuinely suck. But we don't experience the darkness alone because God always gives us Himself to help us cope. Jesus shows up in the thick of it all and takes our hand; there is no explanation or reasoning, there's only Jesus and us, taking one step at a time together, one hour at a time together. Nobody understands suffering more than our God.

If you're in a season of brokenness or suffering, I'd encourage you to read through Job, yes, but also through the Gospels which are riddled with hurting people who encounter Jesus. There's no healing before they meet Him, and He comes alongside them to mourn, grieve, cry, and recover.

It's ok for pain to just be what it is. I've learned that we can sit and endure extreme emotional and mental pain, and it won't end us. Pain won't kill you. It will hurt, absolutely. It may damage us, but we are still here after the smoke clears, bruises and all, with Jesus standing next to us, and that is what true strength is. That is what true faith is.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. -1 Peter 5:10

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. -Romans 5:3-5

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. -James 1:2-4

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison... -2 Corinthians 4:17

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. -Isaiah 53:3

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? -Romans 8:35

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. -Hebrews 2:10