Turning Your Hurt into Someone Else’s Blessing

While it’s generally not a good idea to judge a book by its cover, I find I sometimes do. (Unfortunately despite my best efforts, I also tend to do the same with people: lots of opportunity for improvement there!)

There are certain books where I find just the title is sufficient to get me thinking or grab my attention and many times I never actually read the book. Probably a huge disservice to the author. Other titles capture my imagination and I devour the book; rereading some more than once. The Hobbit, The Holy Longing or The Imitation of Christ, being good examples. Some books that I’ve not read but where the title was sufficient to send a message that resonated: “I’m OK You’re OK” (Very true and we should all keep this in mind). “Is the Noise in My Head Bothering You” (I don’t know about you but it’s very noisy in my head). “When You Look Like Your Passport Photo It’s Time to Go Home”. (Sadly for my wife, I usually looked like my passport photo upon returning from many business trips).  

Erma Bombeck’s book “If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits”, is one that I haven’t read but the title periodically pops into my thoughts. First published in 1971, it seems to get to one of the core questions of our lives: why is this (bad thing) happening to me? And for those not so good events in our lives, if you’re a Christian, the question becomes what is God calling me to do in my current situation?

The answer to the first question is easy: we just don’t know why things, both good and not so good, happen to us versus someone else. Regarding the second question, the great writer C.S. Lewis, said that suffering is God’s megaphone to a deaf world. What I think he was getting at is that when everything is going well for us: our health, our career, our popularity, our relationships, our money, we can start to feel very self-sufficient and in control; that we really don’t need anyone, even God. Moreover it can cause us to feel that suffering is an aberration, and even make us somewhat blind to those whom life is not treating so kindly.  

Most of the time, hopefully,  the set-backs in our lives are relatively small: I didn’t get the raise I hoped for or got turned down in my effort to get a romantic date with someone. Sadly, there are situations that are much more serious such as a life-changing health diagnosis; the end of a long term relationship; the death of a close family member, and so on. In both cases there tends to be a period, short or long depending on the event, when we turn inward to mourn and process, and eventually come to grips with what’s happened. 

However, at a certain point, hopefully the pain we felt, helps to “crack open the shell” with which we often surround ourselves. The thing that to a greater or lesser degree separates us from our sisters and brothers who may well be in difficulty of some sort.

Frank Bruni, a writer for the New York Times, wrote that after experiencing a chronic life changing health event, he found himself not just casually asking people “how’s it going” and not fully listening to their answer, but often following up with another question or so when something seemed off. He went on to say that he was surprised at how many people carry their (invisible) pain and really appreciate the caring shown by those extra questions.

Attending a catholic school as a child we were encouraged to offer whatever pains we had to relieve the suffering of those in Purgatory. While I’m sure it’s a good thought, perhaps we also could consider two thoughts once we are passed the initial pain of our own issue: first, to allow our suffering, whether great or small, to unite us with those suffering around the world whether the terminally ill, those in war torn environments, those in prison, those with food insecurity, just to name a few. Second, that we try and mean it when we say “how’s it going” and actually listen carefully to the answer. While it likely won’t fix someone’s issue whatever it might be, we can at least help bring a human, caring face to God’s “megaphone to a deaf world”.