I’ll never forget being a student nurse in training at the University Hospital in Tucson, AZ. It was my final year of nursing school and I was working in the intensive care unit. Actually I was following a teaching RN around while he performed his very challenging job and trying to learn as much as I could in the short clinical period I had with him to observe. It was a very busy day on that unit, and full of action and excitement. A man had just been brought up from the ER who had been in a very serious car accident. He was conscious, but not much else. He was in tremendous pain, had many lacerations, and road rash, needed surgery, and was having trouble breathing. He was being intubated and placed on a ventilator as stabilizing his condition was a first priority. As my RN preceptor got him settled in his bed and did the usual assessments, the patient, whose name was Benji, was struggling to breath. The alarms were going off on the ventilator and the need arose to suction the secretions from his lungs in order to improve his oxygen levels. If you have ever seen any one suctioned this way, through a tube like catheter to clear his air passageways, to say it is unpleasant would be a horrific understatement. Of course he became combative, expressing his discomfort in this process, and what the nurse said next are words I would never forget. I expected something informative, sterile, instructive, perhaps comforting, but none of these descriptions apply. He simply said,” yeah I know, this sucks Benji”. He’d just met the man and the comment seemed a bit informal, if not insensitive, yet he nailed it with these words, and I never forgot them. He was right on point with that statement,”this sucks”. Yes it did! And though I don’t use that phrase very often if ever, it was perfect for that occasion. Nothing would have more succinctly expressed the man’s experience at that moment than those words. Who knows how his day had started out, his plans, or situation, but surely where he ended up at 9:30 in the morning in the ICU of the University of AZ teaching hospital was not on his agenda. He was having a very bad day that promised to get worse in the coming hours.
In the valley, yet suddenly was where he found himself and a long road to climb back to wear he was resting and cruising along just hours before. The nurse knew it and said it, and it was a comfort. Yes that’s right, a comfort. Because when we are in the valley, and experiencing deep pain, sorrow, loss, difficulties, what most of us really need is someone to come along side us and say, “I understand”. This is painful, this is hard, you are in the crucible….I get it, and I sympathize, I am sorry. These words touch us because they validate our suffering. They strengthen us because someone knows, someone cares and affirms our pain. To acknowledge someone’s pain is to in some way bear it with them, lift them up, and console them. It comforts us in ways that few other interventions do and yet oftentimes it is the very thing that is withheld.
Let’s face it being around someone in pain is uncomfortable and most of us would rather avoid these moments and opportunities. We can’t relate, some of us, so we don’t. But then there is that person, who is not afraid, but gets down there in the valley with you and in whose kindness, the Lord works to lift us up, to carry us through.
Words are powerful, they can bring healing, they can bring hope. And understanding and acknowledging one’s pain can be cathartic. It’s amazing how it can ease the edge of a bitter wound or console a deep sorrow. Simply “I know” can work wonders. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who intimately understands how you personally feel. He made you, he created your heart, and he knows how it hurts, why it hurts, and what it feels like on the inside. In fact I believe in Benji’s case, He might have exonerated the RN’s statement. For it was the truth.
It is when our pain doesn’t matter and no one recognizes it or is even aware of it and we must bare it alone that it becomes excruciating. A true friend will notice, will care and will offer comfort. If you don’t have a friend like that, there is one that sticks closer than a brother and will always care. He says “cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you”. That person is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who made you and knows all about you. Every pain, sorrow, insult, rejection that are seemingly insignificant to others do not go unnoticed by Him. He loves you and He is waiting for you to open the door of your heart that He might comfort and love you and give you everlasting consolation.
In this world you will have tribulations and man was born of trouble as the sparks fly upward, but Jesus says, ” fear not, for I have overcome the world”. Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning for that wounded lost soul who finds peace and faith in the Saviour.
” they looked unto him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed”
Go to Him, tell Him your sorrows, for He cares for you.
Sarah Hopkins Art 