The heart knows its own bitterness

The heart knows its own bitterness,

And a stranger does not share its joy.

Proverbs 14:10

The last week has been a tough one for me. My back pain, while constant, does vary a lot from tolerable right through to agonizing. Last week I had severe leg pain as well, which resulted in severe sleep deprivation, and had to have a day off work. I turned up for work, but was so sleep deprived and in pain that I couldn't do much except cry. I have comforted my little girls so often when they cry, and now it was their turn! I got myself together enough to do some sound blending with them before the relief teacher came in, and they gave me some hugs and kisses as I left.

It tends to be assumed in Christian circles, that if you go through a lot of suffering this makes you more sympathetic toward others who suffer. However, I do not think this is necessarily true. When I have massive back pain, and someone tells me a litany of their much less serious troubles I feel annoyed not sympathetic. (Others with greater troubles than my own may feel the same way toward me!). For example, someone recently told me that she felt "Job like" because one of her plants had died, her back had started being sore again after being good for a long time, she made a dent in her car, and her toilet needed fixing. I almost found this funny, it seemed so silly. I also thought it showed a great lack of perspective, considering the struggles of Job. Another day she told me she couldn't get through a day without having a disaster, and today the kettle had begun to leak. I couldn't help but point out that such an event was hardly a disaster.

When people make the assumption that people who suffer are more helpful, I also think of a pastor at a pentecostal church I once attended. This lady had a severe back problem, worse than my own. This seemed to make her less helpful, not more so. At the time (six years ago) I was doing a job, waitressing, that was completely inappropriate for the problems I have. When I expressed how I was struggling, she told me I did not want to get an "invalid spirit" and that I must keep on going. I continued the job until I totally collapsed.

Having said all this, I can see numerous ways suffering has helped me to be more sympathetic toward others. For example, I realise that when a dramatic life style change happens for any reason (death, divorce, disability, etc) people have to go through stages to recover. They often experience denial, then acceptance, grief, and anger. I more deeply appreciate this because I have been through it myself. I may not be able to identify much with huger griefs than my own, but I can at least realise some of the emotions people involved may be going through.

I also realise that whatever pain someone is experiencing, that is their pain, and it is therefore automatically so much worse to them than that of someone else. As the wise writer of Proverbs said "The heart knows its own bitterness." They cannot feel another's pain. They can sympathise, they can greive, but it is never going to be as immediately pressing, as real, as life changing. This is why the much trotted out advice to "think of those worse than yourself" is only of limited help. I do honestly feel grateful for how good my life is in comparison to those of others. However, I must still deal with what God has brought me in the way of trials. So must those who have lesser trials than my own. This is why when someone tells me, as I sit in agony in the evening at a meeting, about their bad back that sometimes hurts them in the mornings (and assumedly at no other time of the day!), I can to some extent sympathise. Their pain is real to them.

There is no such thing as a pain thermometer. How can the pain of one person, so different to the pain of another, ever be rated against one another? This is why when I hear of others' troubles, I pray I will not rate them against my own and look down on another for complaining about so slight a thing. To do so is not love for them, where they are at. I pray that somehow my pain will result in more sympathy, not less, for those who have physical problems that seem slight to me. I pray that when I am old, I will look like the old woman described in the novel Lorna Doone:

"She looked as if she had been visited by many troubles, and had felt them one by one; yet held enough of a kindly nature still to grieve for others."