This Is Going to Hurt: How to Heal from Your Pain

Growing up, I never once cried for my dad when I got hurt. Not one time. I love my dad, and I even wrote a whole movie about his life story, called Southern Gospel. But when something went wrong, it was always my mom I wanted.

She had this composure about her. My dad would start panicking. My mom would look at the situation, take a breath, and say, "It's going to be fine." And then she'd walk me through whatever needed to happen, starting with the words I both needed and dreaded: "Now, this is going to hurt a little bit. But everything is going to be fine."

I believed her every time because she was always right.

A few weeks ago, I had a moment that brought all of that back. My wife had switched out my usual razor for a new one I didn't recognize. It had a plastic guard over the blades. My hands were wet. I couldn't get the guard off. So, in what I can only describe as a profound lapse in judgment from a 53-year-old man who has spent decades in leadership, I decided to flick it off with my thumb.

Years of studying Scripture, pastoring people, praying through hard situations, and this is the decision I arrived at.

I built up the torque in my thumb and released it. My thumb then dragged itself across every single blade on the razor. I still don't know how many blades there were. It felt like 45.

There was this strange moment where I looked at my thumb and thought, surely there will be blood. It took a second. Then I saw something white and thought, "Is that my bone?” And then the blood came. A lot of it.

I tried running water over it. Still bleeding. I tried patting it with a dry cloth. Still bleeding. The only thing that worked was pressure. I had to press down and hold it. And I want to tell you, the pain of applying that pressure was honestly worse than the original cut. I made some sounds I'm not proud of. I did not feel like a grown man in that moment. I wanted my mom.

But I held the pressure on. And after a few minutes, it stopped bleeding because that is how wounds work.

The Most Dangerous Thing About Pain

That experience kept coming back to me as I prepared to bring this message. Because here's what I've noticed: when something hurts us, our first instinct is almost never to press into it. Our instinct is to pull back. To protect ourselves. To stop feeling it.

Leprosy, known today as Hansen's disease, is a picture of exactly what happens when that instinct takes over at its worst. One of the earliest effects of the disease is nerve damage so severe that the person loses the ability to feel in the affected areas. Because they can't feel, they injure themselves without knowing it. They reach into fire. They leave wounds untreated. What started as something small becomes infected, spreads to other parts of the body, and shows up as a deformity on the outside, all because the sensitivity was gone.

The greatest danger in your life is not what still hurts you. The greatest danger is what no longer hurts you.

There are people reading this right now who don't have Hansen's disease, but who have developed something just like it in their spirits. At some point, something hurt badly enough that a decision was made: never again. So a door was shut in the soul. A wall went up. Feeling stopped in that place. And over time, we started calling it maturity.

When we go spiritually numb, we go numb to correction. We go numb to conviction. We stop hearing the truth when God tries to speak it. We come to church, go through the motions, and nothing touches us because nothing can get through the walls we've built. Infections spread in the hidden places, and we don't know they're there because we can't feel them anymore.

This is not what God wants for us. He doesn't want us living some makeshift version of the life He designed. He wants to go right to the wound.

"If You Are Willing"

In Mark chapter 1, there's a man who had every reason to go numb. He had leprosy. He had lost his job, his family, his place in the community. The law required him to warn people when he was near, crying out, "Unclean! Unclean!" Imagine carrying that every single day. The humiliation. The isolation. The constant reminder that you were considered untouchable.

But he didn't go numb. Somehow, in the middle of all that pain and all that pressure, his spirit stayed alive. When he heard about Jesus, something in him rose up.

He didn't come demanding answers. He didn't come angry. He didn't walk up and say, "You let this happen to me, now You need to fix it." He came kneeling. And he said, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."

“If you are willing.”

There's something about that posture I cannot get over. No ultimatums. No accusations. Just a broken man humbling himself and placing the whole decision in Jesus' hands.

Scripture says that when Jesus heard those words, He was moved with compassion. The Greek word used there describes a feeling of your heart turning completely upside down. Jesus had been grieving for this man. He knew every bit of what he had been through. And the moment this man came to Him with an open hand instead of a pointed finger, Jesus didn't hesitate.

He stretched out His hand and touched him. Not from a distance. He physically reached out and touched the very part of this man's life that everyone else had avoided for years. And He said, "I am willing. Be cleansed."

And immediately, the leprosy left him.

Jesus didn't pull back from the wound. He went right to it. And He still does.

You don't have to heal alone. Healing happens in community. If this message resonates with you, we’d love to meet you this Sunday. Whether you’re looking for a place to process or a group to pray with, there’s a seat for you here. [Plan Your Visit]  [Request Prayer]

The Woman Who Wouldn't Be Offended Out of Her Miracle

In Mark chapter 7, we meet someone very different. A Greek woman living in the region of Tyre hears that Jesus is nearby. Her daughter is possessed by a demon. She wakes up to that wound every single morning.

She doesn't wait for an invitation. She's not even supposed to be there. She pushes through, finds Jesus, and falls at His feet, begging Him to free her daughter.

What happens next is one of the most surprising moments in the Gospels. Jesus essentially tells her that His ministry is first for the children of Israel, and uses a word for "dogs," a term that carried real cultural weight between Jews and Gentiles. If this happened on social media today, everyone would know about it within the hour.

But she didn't get offended. She didn't let that response send her home empty and bitter. Instead, she said: "Even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

What she was saying was this: “I believe there is such overflow in You that even a crumb from Your table is enough to bring my daughter her miracle. I don't need the main course. I'll take whatever You give me.”

Jesus loved that response. He said, "For such a reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter." She walked home and found her daughter completely free.

Here's what I want you to see. This woman had a wound. A daughter in that condition is something you carry with you everywhere. But she didn't let the wound make her numb, and she didn't let it make her bitter or easily offended. She came desperate, humble, and willing to receive whatever He gave her. That posture opened the door to her miracle.

Stop Fighting the Pressure

There's something I've noticed about how we relate to our wounds over time. We fall in love with them. The wound becomes part of our identity. We organize our lives around it. We don't know who we are without it anymore.

Jesus once asked someone, "Do you want to be healed?" That sounds like a strange question, but it isn't. Some people would have to learn how to live healed. All the excuses that worked when they were wounded wouldn't apply anymore. When you're healed, the responsibility is on you to walk in the calling God has for your life. Sometimes the wound feels safer than the purpose.

I played football for eleven years and broke fingers more times than I can count. We'd tape them up and get back on the field. Years later, I looked at my hands and saw that those fingers healed crooked. They were never set properly. I've been told that setting a broken bone is more painful than breaking it. But when you set it correctly, it heals correctly. The pain in the moment is the price of being set right on the other side.

When Jacob wrestled with God all night, God finally touched his hip and dislocated it. Jacob walked with a limp for the rest of his life. People read that and wonder why God would do something like that. But sometimes the thing we carry from the hardest season of our lives is the very thing God uses to keep us humble and moving forward with the right posture.

The beauty of pain is that it breaks our pride. The leper came kneeling. That mother came kneeling. Neither came demanding. Both came in desperation. Jesus met both of them with mercy.

Whatever you're carrying today, whatever wound you've been trying to forget or lock away, God is not afraid of it. He's not going to pull back when He sees it. He wants to reach out and touch it, go right to the place everyone else has avoided, and say the same words He said to that man all those years ago.

“I am willing.”

So stop fighting the pressure. Give Him access to the part of your life that's been broken. This is going to hurt a little. But everything is going to be fine. He has always been willing. And healing with Him is worth every bit of the pressure it takes to get there.