When Pain Brings Us Closer to God

Psalm 34:18: “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”. 

Pain is an experience that most of us spend our lives trying to avoid. We numb it, suppress it, run from it, and, when that fails, we cry out for someone—anyone—to take it away. For those of us living with disabilities or chronic illness, pain often becomes an unwelcome but constant companion, a shadow that walks beside us in the ordinary and the extraordinary moments of our lives.

The Day My World Went Dark

I’ve known pain in many forms. I am a cancer survivor, and I have endured the burning nausea of chemotherapy, the sharp incisions of surgery, and the long road of recovery. But nothing prepared me for the pain I felt in 2012 when I lost my eyesight. In the months it took for my optic nerves to stabilize, I endured a level of suffering I had never known. I was hospitalized for more than two weeks. Doctors performed a spinal tap. I was given an aggressive course of IV steroids that left me aching from head to toe.

But it was my eyes—ironically, the very organs that had betrayed me—that hurt the most. They throbbed constantly, as if my heartbeat had relocated from my chest to my skull. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. I could barely sleep. The pain was relentless and consuming, a storm that raged through my body without rest.

Finding God In Darkness

And yet… in that dark, disorienting hospital room, with the world literally and figuratively blurred beyond my grasp, I found a strange and holy clarity.

I thought to myself: This must be what Jesus felt on the cross. I knew, of course, that His suffering was on a level I couldn’t even begin to fathom—amplified in both intensity and spiritual weight. But in that moment of sheer agony, I didn’t feel forsaken. I felt closer to Christ than I ever had before.

The Mystery and Paradox of Pain

There’s a mystery in pain—a paradox that is hard to explain until you’ve lived it. When everything is stripped away—your physical strength, your independence, your sight, your control—you are left bare and vulnerable. And in that vulnerability, something sacred can happen. We stop relying on ourselves. We stop pretending that we are invincible. We stop holding onto the illusion that we are in control.

Instead, we reach out with trembling hands—sometimes in desperation, in rage, in quiet surrender—and we ask for help. We cry out, as Jesus did, “My God, my God…” And though the answer may not come in the form we expect, it does come.

Paul’s “Thorn in the Flesh” and the Grace of Weakness

In my case, it came in the form of peace. Not an absence of pain—my eyes still throbbed, my body still ached—but a sense of presence. A holy presence. As I lay there, unable to see the world around me, I began to see Christ more clearly than I ever had before.

Since that hospitalization, I’ve lived with many more episodes of physical pain: chronic headaches, optic nerve pressure, and fatigue. My body is a daily reminder of my disability, and there are days when the pain flares with such intensity that I’m brought back to that hospital bed in 2012. But when that memory returns, so does something else: the connection I felt with Jesus in my suffering.

There is a passage in 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul speaks of his own suffering, what he calls a “thorn in the flesh.” He pleaded with God to take it away, but the answer he received was not the healing he hoped for. Instead, God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul responds not with resentment but with deep faith: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

That verse used to confuse me. Why would anyone boast about weakness or pain? But now I understand it on a visceral level. Pain—though cruel and uninvited—has the power to refine us, to soften us, and to draw us closer to the heart of God. It strips away our ego. It teaches us empathy. And it reminds us of our deep and abiding need for grace.

Inviting God Into Our Suffering

Pain, of course, is not redemptive in and of itself. It is not something to romanticize or to wish upon anyone. But it can become redemptive when we invite God into it, allowing our suffering to become a place of communion rather than isolation. When we say, “Lord, I can’t carry this on my own. Stay with me.”

And the incredible truth is—He does.

I have learned to pray differently because of pain. I don’t just ask for relief anymore; I ask for presence. I ask for strength, for companionship, for a reminder that I am not alone. Sometimes I picture Jesus sitting next to me when I’m curled up in bed, eyes throbbing, head pounding. I imagine Him placing His hand on my shoulder, not taking the pain away but bearing it with me and holding it, holding me, until it passes.

Seeing the Sacred In Suffering

That image brings me immense comfort. It also reminds me of the people Jesus healed during His ministry—not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. So many of them had been suffering for years. They had been cast out, misunderstood, dismissed. But Jesus didn’t just heal their ailments. He saw them. He dignified their pain. He reminded them that they were beloved.

As a disabled person, that message speaks volumes to me. The world often fails to see the sacred in suffering. It sees only limitation, burden, and brokenness. But God sees differently. God sees possibility. God sees purpose. God sees us—even in the moments when we feel most invisible.

The Formation of Pain

Living with a disability is not easy. Chronic pain is not easy. But I’ve come to see my physical suffering not as a punishment or a failure of faith, but as a place of deep spiritual formation. It has taught me to rely more fully on God. It has deepened my compassion for others who suffer. And it has helped me to experience the nearness of Christ in ways I might never have otherwise known.

The God Who Sits With Us

Of course, I still pray for healing. I believe in the God of miracles. But I also believe in the God who sits with us in the dark, who listens to our groans, who counts every tear. The God who did not bypass suffering but entered into it—who took on flesh and pain and death so that we would never suffer alone.

So when the pain returns—as it inevitably does—I try to turn my face, even blindly, toward Jesus. I remember that hospital bed. I remember the tears and the prayers and the aching in my bones. And I remember the presence of God in that place. I thank Him for holding me close. I ask Him to help me cope. And I trust that even in my suffering, I am not forsaken.

A Message for Those Who Suffer

If you are someone who lives with chronic pain, I want you to know this: your pain is real. Your experience matters. And you are deeply loved, not despite your suffering, but in the midst of it.

We may not always understand why we suffer. But in the mystery of pain, we can find the miracle of presence. And sometimes, that is where we meet God most intimately—not in the absence of suffering, but in the heart of it.