It is estimated that twenty percent of the world’s population live with chronic pain. You may include yourself in this number of persistent pain sufferers.
Roger Hurding (1934-2019) lived most of his life with chronic pain. He became diabetic in his youth, resulting in a loss of vision. While several eye surgeries were able to restore partial vision, he also suffered from angina, culminating in major heart surgery. The surgeon told him he might live another five years, but Roger lived another twenty-six years with numerous health scares and progressive renal failure.
Pain can lead us toward God or away from God. Pain drew Roger closer to God, giving him added insight and empathy into other people’s suffering. Roger became a physician, primarily to treat patients like himself with chronic pain. He observed the close interplay in his medical practice between mental health and physical well-being. So, in mid-career, he shifted to counseling and became a respected psychotherapist in England. He was dismissive about easy bromides for pain and dubious about the fantastic claims of faith healers yet relentless about finding ways to incorporate the psychological self into deeper union with God. His twelve books apply the practice of prayer and meditative Scripture reading to address chronic pain. The Apostle Paul suffered from chronic pain. He repeatedly asked God to remove his “thorn in the flesh,” all to no avail. Instead, he found God’s grace to be sufficient in his weakness (2 Cor, 12.7-9).
Roger’s prayer reflects his desire to seek Christ through the pain: