I wrote this poem in the middle of my four-year struggle to walk without pain. As you will see in the poem, I also struggled to write. Chronic pain has the potential to steal a lot from our lives. It’s still something I deal with on a daily basis, but thankfully my walking and writing is so much better. Yet I remain aware that human abilities balance on a wire, and can wane at any moment.

If you struggle with chronic pain I bet you will relate to this poem, and I hope it gives you some comfort and hope. If you can’t relate, read it anyway to gain a better understanding of the struggles faces by people in your life.

An Ode to Pain and Then to Hope

Pain.
I’ve known you when I drive
With blurry eyes
And take the long way ’round
To clear tears
Lest they soon be found.

Pain.
I’ve known you on my bed
Those endless hours
Marked by dread,
When for escape
A bath is run
Perhaps three times
Before the sun.

Pain.
I’ve known you in my cries,
That raw, whispered agonize
That moment when my courage breaks
When I add fury to my aches.

Pain.
I’ve known you when I walk
A few steps then as if to mock
It stabs
And “how long ’till a bench?”
I think,
But used to walk a block (or a mountain)
Without a blink.

Pain.
I’ve known some small reprieves
When like a phantom seems to leave
But soon returns-
And thinking then
Was better when
Forgotten was
That easy way
Men live their day.

Pain.
I’ve known you when I write,
But what?
To stop without a fight?
I call it war
But it brings sanity
If pain is not to bare
In vanity.

Pain.
The great confronting force
That floods my forecast
With remorse.
I said “Tomorrow
I’ll go here, do that, do this”
And quite amiss,
“You do not know
What tomorrow brings”
Much truer rings
When today has stings.

Pain.
That torches all my plans
Which fall like ashes from my hands.

Pain.
I said “All I need is Christ”
Before you’d entered in my life
And how like costless words they fell
Before I felt this life was hell.

Pain.
It strips, it presses,
It rends,
Those marching forward
Backward bends,
Applying force
As if to break
Not so much the body
But spirit to take.

Pain.
It came in like a thief
To tinge each moment
With its’ grief,
And yet its’ color
Black and bleak
Hasn’t seeped
So as my faith to keep,
Although it seeks.

But
There’s a Greater Seeker
Mining out that hidden nature-
What to make out of a heart
That cowered greatly at the start-
And still.

Pain!
The forces solids
Through a strain!
Is it not possible to tame
A wandering heart
By softer names?

Well, I did ask
But then it still remained
And behind it was
The God who made my frame.

And what has He accomplished
Through such frightening means?

To bend a rushing river
Into softer streams.

I used to think this life
All mine to shape and mold,
Vaguely aware the Potter
Somewhere stood
But I’d been told
To plan steps
Give God a nod
And watch it all unfold.

So I thought it
Quite uncalled for,
Perhaps cruel
That God should use
A winepress
As His tool.

The Sovereign hand that stings
Also has healing in His wings
And though I see no calm
He smoothes a healing balm
On all my grief
Even without that pain’s relief.

When courage breaks
He doesn’t take ‘way grace.

Sometimes I go forward
And can’t see Him there,
On the left hand
He is working
Even through despair.
I look behind
Sometimes I don’t perceive the good
But in time this dreary mine
Will be understood.

When I come out
(Yes when)
From this way He’s paved
After the black and bruised
Stumbling and my lack of brave-
Whether the tunnel crumble in
Or finally open up,
He will bring me out gold
From this broken cup.

Job 23:8-10 “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.”

I found “A Place of Healing” by Joni Eareckson Tada to be a helpful book at this time in my life, if you are looking for encouragement.