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Interfaith column: Pain offers lessons for life

Pain comes in multiple forms — physical, emotional and spiritual. And there is no escape from experiencing some form of pain throughout life.

It may seem counter intuitive, but pain can sometimes be seen as a guide or reminder.

For example, we experience the physical pain of sunburn and are reminded that it is not sensible to be over exposed to the sun.

In the emotional realm, we learn to avoid saying thoughtless and rude things because we hurt a once good friend who now avoids us.

And spiritually, we may learn that shunning worship services leads to a void in life.

But as incredible as it may seem, real healing can come through embracing and experiencing pain instead of trying to avoid, ignore or bury it.

For example, after a shoulder surgery, pain will occur during exercises prescribed by the physical therapist. If the patient attempts to avoid the pain by not doing the exercises, the person will lose use of the shoulder.

Or if the patient ignores the pain and does too much, ultimately more pain will occur and possibly injury to the shoulder.

However, if the patient does the exercises with an understanding that a certain amount of pain will be present, then regaining strength and use of the shoulder will likely happen.

Interestingly, of all the pains, physical pain is probably easier to deal with than emotional or spiritual pain. If nothing else, we can medicate it away with fair success.

Many people attempt to medicate emotional and spiritual pain away too through the use of alcohol, narcotics, shopping and even work; but in time, the pain resurfaces in one way or another and often with deeper emotional injury to self and others.

Job is an interesting example of someone who endured pain of every sort. His children were killed. His livelihood was destroyed, his wife cursed him and he became miserably ill with boils over his entire body.

On top of all of this, his peers gave him a hard time instead of supporting him. Job wonders why he was ever born; only to endure all that had befallen him.

Nevertheless, Job did not curse God, but embraced his pain, questioned God and sat in ashes.

Ashes are an interesting symbol and in scripture they are most often seen as a sign of repentance. Often spiritual symbols correlate to the physical world helping us better understand the symbolism and the possible meaning for our lives.

Ashes are one of those symbols. In the physical world, wood ashes have multiple uses including polishing precious metals, cleaning glass, fertilizing the ground, bleaching fabrics and more.

It is easy to see the correlation of these uses to our spiritual selves. We can be seen as a precious metal that needs polishing or a beloved fabric that requires beaching to remove ugly stains or a patch of ground in need of fertilizer for it to produce healthy grain.

Job sat in the ashes, feeling the pain, acknowledging his humanness and the need for some form of transformation. In the end, Job recovered and was better off than before all the devastation. It does seem that embracing the pain and allowing the ashes to do their work of spiritual cleaning helped to bring about Job's recovery.

Today, we may not use real ashes to sit in and experience repentance and healing, but we can recognize pain in our lives and allow it to teach us, strengthen us and even heal us.

John O'Donohue understood this well when he wrote, "May you have the commitment to harvest your life, to heal what has hurt you, to allow it to come closer to you and become one with you."

Teri Helton is a registered nurse, faith community nurse for Livingston Memorial VNA & Hospice and a member of the Conejo Valley Interfaith Association, which meets monthly and welcomes clergy and representatives of all religious faiths. She can be reached at 612-7741 or by email at