A reality check – every single person you know is struggling with pain you likely know nothing about. Pain can be physical, emotional, mental, relational, or even spiritual. It comes in all shapes and sizes. Pain is as unique as our personalities and fingerprints.
This weekend, I’ll begin teaching the framework we have released in the book Letters to My Friends in Pain at Harvest Community Church in Eugene, Oregon. If you live close, you’re invited. And if you don’t, I’d love to have you participate online on our YouTube Channel or Facebook Page. Yes, I know it’s Super Bowl Sunday. I promise that we will be done long before you need to prep for kickoff.
We’re calling this new series Pity or Perseverance, exploring how the pains of life present a choice: Wallow in self-pity or become stronger by turning to Jesus. From now until Easter, we will explore the Bible to discover how to become stronger while facing pain. Specifically, we’ll unpack 5 choices – I call them the Five Mindsets – that make all the difference between pity and perseverance.
Pain is personal to me. If you know my story, you know I suffer from chronic pain in a variety of forms including a headache over the last two and half years that my doctors cannot alleviate no matter what we’ve tried. It’s easy, even natural, to turn to self-pity. Been there, done that. The questions are endless. The solutions always seem a little beyond our grasp. The number one goal when we are in pain: Get out of it. In self-pity and the desire to numb our pain, we feel stuck, wallowing in isolation and self-sufficiency. There has to be a better way to live. There is.
If you come to Harvest this Sunday, I’ll give you a free copy of the book. If you can’t make it to Harvest or would like additional copies for friends, they can be purchased on Amazon. God is doing something special these days at Harvest that you don’t want to miss. Your friends truly need to experience what God is doing too. So, bring someone with you this week at 9:00am or 10:45am. If you can’t make it in person, we’re online any time after 9:00am on Sunday.
I’m not promising I can take away your pain, but I am pointing us to the One who will one day end pain, suffering, sin, grief, and death – forever.