The Gift of Pain

Originally Posted March 31, 2008

I just finished reading a book by Dr. Brand and Phillip Yancey entitled, The Gift of Pain. It brought an entirely new
perspective on pain. Dr. Brand worked with lepers who feel no pain and studied pain. Dr. Brand explains at length the difficulty caused by not having any pain at all. He spent years with the lepers whose main problem was not the leprosy but the absence of pain even after the leprosy itself was cured. He makes a convincing argument that pain is to be embraced as it protects us from so many things.

As I deal with chronic pain, I was very interested in his perspective on chronic pain. The first thing we must do is find
the cause for pain and, if possible, alleviate it. If you aren’t able to alleviate it, then we must learn to live above it and
work through it. He does not claim that it will be easy, but does show that it is possible.

Throughout his book, Dr. Brand shows how his love for Christ affected his compassion for those less fortunate and
unloved. He and his family embraced the lepers and strove to help them both physically and spiritually. This book encouraged me in my chronic pain in two seemingly opposite ways. 1) I need to pay more attention (something people have told me for a long time) to my pain signals and work hard to prevent them. 2) It is possible to overcome my chronic pain and live victoriously. Then, it was a wonderful example of Christ’s compassion and love in practice.