Tears for Sowing

A cry from the shadow of pain can become a cry for the joyous light of God.

Today is the third Sunday of Advent and the standard theme for this Sunday is “joy.” But simply designating a day as joyous doesn’t make rejoicing easy if you are experiencing chronic pain.

Chronic pain, as opposed to temporary pain, is agony that may be dulled somewhat by medication or other treatments, but never goes away. A woman we’ll call Linda, known to one of our Homiletics writers, has suffered severe pain for much of her adult life. It all began after an automobile accident. Initially, surgeries provided some relief, but those procedures stressed other parts of her skeletal and nervous systems, which in turn deteriorated and required additional surgical interventions. Now in her senior years, Linda goes to a pain management clinic, where she receives injections that give her some short-term reduction in pain levels, but the practitioner in that office recently told Linda, “By the time anyone is referred to pain management, it is unlikely that...