​An ailing patient paid a visit to the hospital.  He complained of pain to his doctor.  The doctor asked the patient to describe the pain and the location of the ailment.  The patient first pointed to his leg, then his back, his side, and lastly, his head.  He said, “Every time I press on these places, it hurts.”  After giving the patient a thorough look-over, the doctor replied, “You have a broken finger!”  Because he had a broken finger, he felt pain every time he touched a part of his body with the finger!

 No one is free from pain.  Every one of us feels some sort of pain in some part of our bodies.  As long as we breathe, no one is completely free of pain.  We feel pain in our hearts, the emotional anguish.  Because humans are beings of emotion, we are hurt by even the small things that happen in our lives.  One poet even went as far as to say that people are emotionally hurt by broken rays of moonlight in a dark night.  On the cassette called our hearts, everyone has recorded the words ‘pain’ and ‘hurt’ during some point in their lives.  No matter how old we are whether we are in our 50s, 60s, or 70s playing back this tape will surely reveal the words ‘pain’ and ‘hurt.’  For some of us, these words will play back more times than we care to remember.

 When too many places in our bodies and our heart are overcome with pain, the breadth and magnitude of disparate yet numerous sources of pain make it impossible for us to pinpoint the source of pain.  The patient I mentioned before knew that he was hurting somewhere.  But he did not know exactly where he hurt.  When the doctor asked him where he was feeling pain, he started pointing to places in his body that he felt pain in.  Yet, every part he pointed to seemed to hurt.  Because his finger was broken, every place he touched with that finger shot a pang of sharp pain throughout his body.

 We are hurting today.  We feel surreptitious pain those that others don’t know about.  We have wounds.  We anguish in pain.  Yet, we do not know exactly where we hurt.  We need to be able to accurately diagnose the source of our pain.  Only when we know where, how, and why we hurt, we can start an effective treatment to eradicate the pain.

 First, we hurt because of our sins.  Humans were created in the image of God; therefore, even from birth, we take after God (see Genesis 1: 26-27).  Perhaps man’s most keenly similar characteristic with God is his conscience.  Some people are so branded with sins that their conscience seems non-existent.  Yet, all people are born with conscience and when we sin, our conscience reacts very sensitively.  We feel sharp pangs of pain in our conscience, as if someone is pricking it with a needle.  All the sins that we have committed since birth continue to afflict and plague our conscience.

​However, God will surely comfort us when we genuinely regret and repent of our sins.   He will forgive us.  All of our sins were forgiven through the Cross of Christ.  Believe in the fact that when we regret and feel sorrow over our sins, God will forgive us through Jesus Christ.  Believe in the words of promise outlined in Isaiah 43: 25.  “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.” 

 Second, we hurt because of our failures.  We feel pain when we fail in our business venture, our marriage, raising our children, going to college of our choice, interpersonal relationships, and such.  No one feels happy when he fails.  Failure brings certain clouds of darkness into our lives.  It saps our desire and will.  But when we wallow in our failure, God helps us recover.  He helps us get back on our feet!

​Reverend Gordon MacDonald was a renowned and very successful pastor in America.  But he succumbed to his carnal desires and got involved in extra-marital affair.  Feeling great pain in his conscience, he confessed his sins and resigned from his ministry.  Thinking that he had failed his ministry and his life, he was undergoing psychological therapy with no hope for the future.  However, a congregation contacted him, voicing their wish to bring him on board as their pastor.  But Reverend MacDonald refused, saying that he was too broken to ever step up to the pulpit.  The people of congregation then replied, “We are broken people, too.”  God recovered the broken and failed Reverend MacDonald from depths of the abyss.  He used him again.  Now, he is once again a great pastor.

 It is stated in Isaiah 43: 18-19.  “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it?  I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”  When we bemoan our failure and leave it up to God, the ‘ashes of failure’ will be transformed into the ‘wreath of glory.’

 Third, we are hurt through our disappointment in others.  Throughout our lives, we live in a complex web of interpersonal relations.  Thus, we are disappointed by others countless number of times.  Our spouses, in whom we had total faith, can betray us.  We can feel great disappointment in our children.  Every one of us feels that we can raise our children into the perfect mold that we desire yet, when our children grow, they sometimes do not heed our advice or turn out like we expected.  Our friends, who had pledged unwavering friendship to us, can leave our side.  We can be disappointed in our bosses at work.  We can be disappointed in our peers and subordinates in our work place.

 Have you felt disappointed in other people?  Then bemoan your disappointment.  God will console you.  And forgive those who disappointed you.  Only then will you be freed from the prison cell of anger and hatred (see Isaiah 61: 1).  Only then will you be liberated from your confinement.

​Fourth, we hurt because of countless tragedies beyond our control.  We can do nothing when our loved ones depart from us.  Inconsequential of the advances in medicine today, all life is in God’s hands.  Because of 9.11 terrorist attacks, thousands of people lost their lives.  Three airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in broad daylight, yet no one could do anything to stop that tragedy from unfolding.  There are too many things and happenings that are beyond our control.  Watching those tragedies unfold is truly torturous.

 But when we bemoan and sorrow over those tragedies beyond our abilities, God consoles us.  He gives us the vision of the next world.  Revelations 21: 4 reveals, “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more deaths, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”  God promises us the New Kingdom, which lies beyond this world of tragedy.  The tragedy and pain are ephemeral; it is not permanent.  We cannot compare the tragedy of today with the kingdom of glory that lies ahead.  Have faith in the fact that glorious and everlasting heaven awaits us!

​Do you remember the ‘Black September’ terrorist attack that took place some 30 years ago?  The Olympic games were held in Munich, Germany, on September 5, 1972.  A terrorist group called the Black September entered the Olympic Village while the games were underway.  They attacked the room where the Israeli athletes and coaches were staying, and ended up killing two Israelis a wrestling coach and a weight lifter while taking 9 other athletes as hostages.  Their demand was immediate release of their fellow terrorists who were imprisoned.  Yet, their true purpose lay elsewhere.  They committed this act of terror to introduce Yassir Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the plight of the homeless Palestinian people to the rest of the world.

 Although they were unsuccessful in freeing their incarcerated comrades, these terrorists succeeded in introducing the PLO and the Palestinian issue to the world.  Not long after the attack, Arafat was invited to speak to the United Nations General Assembly, and PLO obtained a special observer status to the United Nations Assembly.  After achieving their goals, the PLO and Arafat ran into an important crossroads.  It was no longer necessary to have young men risk their lives to commit acts of political terrorism.  Radical terrorist groups like ‘Black September’ became unnecessary.

​Arafat instructed his intelligence chief, Abu Iyad, to adopt measures to transform members of Palestinian terror organizations into normal, law-abiding citizens.  Iyad and his subordinates at the intelligence agency pored over this issue.  They had many debates and arguments over this issue.  Finally, they were able to settle on one solution.  Do you know what that solution was?  It was marrying off all the members of the terror organizations.  They decided to give theses terrorists a reason to live by giving them families, not a cause to die for.

Arafat’s lieutenants began searching throughout all the Palestinian refugee settlements scattered throughout the Middle East.  It was to marry all the radical terrorists off by finding prospective brides for them.  They succeeded in rounding up 100 attractive women.  None of these women could have refused to obey, since the order came from Arafat himself, the de-facto absolute ruler of Palestinian people at the time.  In the Lebanese capital of Beirut, 100 couples participated in a joint wedding ceremony.  Bridegrooms were one-time suicide bombers who strapped explosives to their bodies, and the brides were the most attractive women of Palestine.

 Arafat gave each new couple 3,000 dollars in addition to a job in Beirut and an apartment furnished with a gas stove, a refrigerator, and a television.  For couples who had babies, he gave them a bonus of 5,000 dollars.  Soon after, the most fearless and ruthless terrorists in the world, the members of Black September, became happy and content family men.

​The PLO intelligence agency conducted periodic checks to ensure that these terrorists became law-abiding citizens.  As a test, the agency gave these former terrorists an order to conduct an act of terror abroad.  Without exception, not a single former member followed the agency’s orders.  They were all afraid of possible arrests and imprisonment due to their past track records and activities.  After all, they all had loving families to look after.  Because of their spouses, children and loved ones, they could no longer participate in acts of terrorism.

​What does this event, which is a true event, teach us?  Hatred makes us ugly while love makes us gentle.  Those who experience the love of family can no longer become terrorists, murders of innocent people.

One true remedy for all the ills we fell today is love.  The sole pain reliever for all the aches and pain we feel is the familial bond and love.  As long as familial love the love between our family members exist, we can be comforted in pain while sustaining our courage and hope for the future.  And when we embrace all the sources of our pain and ills with love and forgiveness, our wounds will be healed.

​The 2 Corinthians 1: 3 call our God the ‘God of all comforts.’  God of all comforts does not mean that He eradicates all our pain and suffering.  It means that He makes us stronger in the midst of our pain.  As long as we live, we will feel pain and suffering.  Some days that pain will be strong and unbearable; some days, it will be less.  Regardless, pain and suffering will accompany us until the day we die.  But all the while, God will comfort us.  He helps us overcome our pain and suffering!

 Do you hurt today?  Do you feel pain?  Then look at the all comforting God.  Jesus stated in Matthew 5: 4, “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  When you mourn, God will comfort you.  As today’s scripture denotes, God is the One who heals.  He is the one who comforts all those who are in mourning.  He is the one who gives “them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”  The bigger you hurt and pain the greater God’s comfort!  Amen!

 “God foresaw your tribulation, has specifically armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.”   - C.S. Lewis in Letters of C.S. Lewis