In this week's episode of Grey's Anatomy (which I happily managed to catch by a mad dash to the KL airport to catch the 7 pm flight back), the interns treated a little girl named Megan which had a (not unknown) genetic defect which caused her not to feel pain. Because she was an orphan and was bounced around foster homes most of her life, the condition went undiagnosed. She had wounds all over her (some of which she stapled with iron staples - ouch!) and through an X-ray, the doctors discovered she had serious internal injuries and bleeding. The little girl believed she had superpowers (well, not unusual for a kid to believe) - and would get into fights in school with bullies, asking them to punch her in the stomach repeatedly, since she felt no pain.
Was reminded of the book co-authored by Philip Yancey and Paul Brand, "Where is God when it Hurts", still the very best book on pain and suffering that I have read.
"It is pain that allows me to be free. When I started to study medicine I would probably have said that my purpose was to relieve pain and suffering and to save lives. Today after a lifetime of treating those in pain and those without pain I would say that my purpose is to relieve suffering and to improve the quality of life. The main difference is that then I thought of pain as an enemy, while today I think of it as a help, indeed as an important element in the prevention of suffering.
How often I have heard people complain about God when they have pain. They do not blame God for giving us a signal that tells of disease or injury, but why make it so unpleasant and why not make it easy to switch off? Now I know why. Today there are ways to switch off pain. Pain killing drugs quickly become addictive because the addict seems to be living in a problem free and pain free world."
Ya, too many of my actions and decisions are centred around pain-reduction, , without recognizing the benefit of pain in encouraging spiritual growth, whether for myself or others. Lord, please help me not to reach out for Telenol too quickly, all the time.
