Luke 1:35
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Luke 1:35 (NIV)
There’s a kind of therapy that encourages us to stay with our pain—not to avoid it, distract from it, or minimize it. The belief is that healing comes as we move toward our pain—because it puts us in touch with the place that needs the most healing.
This reflects something true about God.
God does not avoid his pain. Fallen creation grieved God. But he did not discard creation or find something else to do. Jerusalem brought Jesus to tears. But he did not turn from it. When Lazarus died, Jesus was deeply moved—he did not minimize his grief. Jesus was in anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. But he stayed under its weight.
God does not avoid our pain either. In the incarnation, God enters our condition and his creation. He steps into our limitations—into bodies that tire and hunger, hearts that break, lives that suffer. He goes all the way down into the depth of human experience, even to death itself.
This is more than closeness. It is a shared life.
Not God above us, directing.
Not God against us, condemning.
Not God somewhere else, commanding.
But God with us—remaining, entering, carrying.
God joining us to himself—putting together what has been divided.
This shows how deeply he values what he has made.
Across the story of Scripture, God keeps moving toward us. When we turn from him, he draws near in the covenant. When we are distant, he comes closer in the virgin birth. When he is rejected and killed, he comes closer still—he moves in at Pentecost.
We may sense something similar in our own lives. That turning toward our pain, rather than away from it, begins a way forward. That grief seems like death, yet somehow brings new life.
It often feels like our pain will shrink or destroy us, and that healing must lead us out of pain, not into it. It seems like pain and grief make us weak—that we are only mighty without them. But in a way, we follow the same pattern as Jesus, whose “weakness was of strength.” (Saint Augustine)
The less we hide, minimize, numb or distract ourselves, the more we live as whole people, like we were designed: bearing the likeness of the man from heaven (1 Corinthians 15:49) who bore the likeness of the earthly human.
We don’t grieve as those who have no hope. As it was with Jesus, pain is not our final experience. We aren’t nailed to our anguish. We aren’t left in the grave. There is a place both beyond and within our pain where we are held in love, which is greater than death.
Questions for Reflection:
- Where am I most tempted to avoid or numb pain right now, rather than stay with it?
- What might it look like, in a small way, to remain present to that place?
Prayer:
Lord, your ways are amazing. The story you have for us. How you lived and live. We marvel at the events and how you enter our condition and our stories. Help us be inspired and trust you. Amen.
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