Understanding Pain

By Lillian Owaga

Pain does not have to be painful anymore! That being the newsflash, you can now relax. Every pain has a source and will always be associated with emotions and feelings. Pain doesn't come alone and that makes it easier to handle our pain. Emotions like anger, shame, grief, fear, sorrow... are among the pain that we go through. In fact, the emotions and the feelings are the pain and the pain is the emotions and the feelings. How then do we understand our pain? Simply embark on breaking down your pain into every single emotion and feeling! 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lillian Owaga
• Release date: Jul 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223539247

Lillian Owaga

Miss Owaga lives in Nairobi, Kenya. She graduated with a degree in Communication and Media Technology with IT from Maseno University. She is a newspaper article writer as well as a book author. 

Book preview

Prologue

But when your mind is dimmed and your sufferings are great, it is then that you take an active part in my passion and I am conforming you more fully to myself...And when it seems to you that your suffering exceeds your strength, contemplate my wounds and you will rise above human scorn and judgement. Meditation upon my passion will help you rise above everything.—Jesus Christ.

The first time that Saint Maria Faustina encountered Jesus Christ face to face was when she was in a dance with her sister. She began to experience torments in her soul while everyone had a good time and enjoyed the music. Then in an instant, Jesus appeared at her side in His painful state. Jesus had his cloths tone and his body covered with wounds and blood. Then Jesus only asked Faustina a simple yet sensitive question, How long shall I put up with you and how long shall you keep putting me off?

The music stopped at that instant and everything around her vanished so that she was left alone with Jesus. All that, was taking place in her soul and in a quick moment. Then things returned to normal and she sat down beside her sister pretending to have a headache. She realized that no one had noticed what she had experienced.

After some time, she slipped out unnoticed and went to the Cathedral of Saint Stanislaus Kostka. She found a few people still praying since it was almost twilight. Without paying attention to anyone who might have been watching, she fell prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament and begged the Lord to be good enough to give her an understanding of what she was supposed to do next.

Then she heard the words, Go at once to Warsaw, you will enter a convent there. She rose up immediately, went home and took care of what she had to, then after confiding to her sister, she bid everyone goodbye including her parents then left only in her dress—no other belonging.

From there, she faced challenges including finding a place to lodge for the night. Even the following morning when she entered the first church she saw, the priest only guided her to another lady—whom she would stay with as she waited for God's guidance. She wasn’t immediately welcomed to several convents and she struggled before she was eventually welcomed to the congregation of The Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy on Zytnia Street in Warsaw.

It was simple. She approached the Mother Superior, Mother General Michael who told her to go to the Lord of the house and ask whether He would accept her. She immediately understood that she was to ask Jesus. So she went and asked, Lord of the house, do you accept me? This is how one of these sisters told me to put the question to you. Then she heard the voice, I do accept—you are in my heart. That was where she received the name Sister Maria Faustina from Helen Kowalska.

That is when her great suffering began through her difficult journey of holiness and sanctity. She suffered all sorts of pain—physical, emotional and spiritual, which God allowed in her life. At one point, she was very dead inside until she began to smell like a corpse yet, she still walked and did her duties. And even after begging the Lord to take her and unite her with Him, it did not happen immediately. The Lord told her until her mission on earth was completed—which was spreading and writing the gospel about the Divine Mercy of God.

Saint Faustina eventually united with God barely thirty-three years old. During the final years of her life, the suffering intensified and she underwent what is called ‘the passive night’ of the soul together with extreme physical diseases. It was the tuberculosis that spread to her lung that became the final. At one point she wrote that, Oh Christ, if my soul had known all at once, what it was going to have to suffer during its lifetime, it would not have touched its lips to the cup of bitterness. But as it has been given to drink a drop at a time, it has emptied the cup to the very bottom.

Saint Faustina was able to conquer all her pain through her mystical encounters with God. She experienced moments of spiritual darkness and dryness. Moments of abandonment by the spirit of God and great trials. Moments of shame and scorn, moments of being misjudged, despised and accused falsely. She was even once called 'a queer hysterical visionary' by one of the Mothers. She eventually attained her place in heaven as a saint and Jesus declared to her that she is the living witness to His mercy and His secretary for mercy not just on earth but also in the next life.

––––––––

What about the rest of us with our pain? Does it seem to us that we are being given a drop at a time or are we made to drink down the entire content of the chalice at once? Is it bearable? Is it even making sense?

Chapter One

Nice to Meet You Pain

––––––––

It was August 2014, around 1.00 am, when a searing pain on the left side of my head woke me from sleep. It slowly got intense all the way to the back of my left eye, spreading to my left jaw and to the left part of my neck.  At first I thought it was just a passing impulse, only to find myself trying to decipher and endure a three-hours mysterious and extreme head pain (I don't call it headache because that feeling was nothing close to aching, neither was it throbbing. It was something between piercing and gripping so tight). And while I thought it was over, it resurfaced later in the day, the next few days and even in the later years—maintaining a pattern in several months.

Now, this was not the first time I was experiencing pain, but I still can't compare it to any other physical pain. In an attempt to describe pain, I realize I get too personal, too deep, too severe, too wordy, too detailed, I get so extreme because I have known pain—or at least I think 'I know pain'.

Of course people can be a pain in some sense, making a part of whatever I'm intending to delve into (which is entirely physical and emotional pain, but there is also spiritual pain). People do cause others both sorts of pain and so do circumstances. And it would be fairly rational if I conclude that we have all (the human race), experienced pain whether extreme or mild, one time or recurring, temporary or lasting (but not really in the whole context, as the common saying has it that 'nothing lasts forever' so it eventually ends except after what seems like a lifetime).

Just to get too personal as I feel obliged to (after knowing pain), I get candid and obvious when describing pain. It is a state of suffering, anguish, displeasure, sadness, distress, disgust, agony, hopelessness, helplessness—all the painful words that flashes across your mind can be tailored here. There is no happiness in pain, neither goodness nor ‘being okay’ which we all know even though sometimes we pretend to initiate the okay-ness in our pain and painful situations. Or maybe it’s not pretending or forcing, but we rather feel compelled to be 'okay'.

But then, there's always a reason behind every pain which is beautiful most of the time. Suffering is a great grace indeed. There is a special way in which God treats those who He intends to keep closer to Him—through suffering. In her book, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Saint Faustina describes very amazing face-to-face encounters with the Lord Jesus Christ and how through her suffering, she was able to attain the highest degree of holiness. Jesus tells her that a suffering soul is closer to His heart. It is through suffering and pain that a soul becomes like the Savior. In suffering, love becomes crystalized—the greater the suffering the purer the love. Jesus even adds, "Suffering will be a sign to you that I am with you."

We shall later look at the beauty of suffering and just why, Jesus recommends us to meditate upon His wounds and sorrowful passion whenever we are in deep pain. Until I stumbled upon St. Faustina's book, I had never even for a second, regarded the pain of Jesus. I have never even thought of Jesus at any point of my painful moments—let alone His pain. It has never occurred to me that He actually suffered the most painful and humiliating pain anyone can be put through. I have never considered reading the story of His crucifixion, word by word and try to create a background picture in mind.

I have always picked the Gospel books and read blankly just like reading a novel and anticipating the next scene. Not bothering to stop for a while to contemplate a sentence. I have never even bothered to contemplate why He actually prayed until His sweat become blood and not normal sweat any more. Why He kept pleading with His Father to take away the cup from Him.

I have never imagined or pictured myself on a cross (totally naked except for a tiny garment covering a slight part of my lower body) for more than three hours in the cold, all the while supporting the entire weight of my body just on spikes. The people who did the crucifixion knew anatomy very well and they were aware that there are positions in which the human body cannot sustain for long hours. Hanging with the arms outstretched for long hours exerts pressure to the lungs. And they knew just how to worsen it by other tortures. With blood flowing, it would be easy for His body to give up after some time because they had already tampered with the normal flow of blood by drilling the spikes into His feet and hands. Not even His hands but the palms because it was the spikes (I don't know how many inches) that were supporting Him, and they knew the flesh was bound to tear.

So Jesus had to strain His back while He alternated in shifting His weight from His palms to His legs but eventually He would grow weary, stop holding on and surrender to death. It was a smart method because the Roman soldiers later broke the bones of the legs of the two thieves so that lifting their weight off the spikes would be impossible and then they would not be able to breathe properly and die soon due to asphyxiation. They did not succeed that on Jesus as it was written that 'Not one of His bones shall be broken'—John 19:36. The breaking of the bone was to hasten death, but when they came to do that, Jesus was already dead.

I have also never imagined being whipped to the extent of the flesh in different parts of my body tearing off—not to mention people's spittle all over that broken body. I have never tried to picture myself carrying something as heavy as a cross for a long distance while receiving whacks of whips—because I fear heavy weights, I don't even think my chest can bear anything heavy.

By then He already had the thorns digging deep into the flesh of His head. People had enjoyed slapping Him especially those who had always despised Him and had just been waiting for a moment as such. They didn't think Pilate had done enough job. He even remained silent when they undressed Him, tore His garment and proceeded to cover Him with that tiny piece because perhaps they didn't want Him hanging on the cross naked with His manhood exposed. Whether it irritated them or whether it was their tradition or whether they just had a spark of empathy left in them, I just don't know. But I have never been undressed in public then have myself half covered in something else, then plastered on the air like a billboard before the entire world.

There is a lot to meditate and contemplate in the story of Jesus. But we might argue and console ourselves that He was extraordinary, that He

Reviews for Understanding Pain

[Lilian Adongo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book is really engaging and simple. Not complex and the blend of stories with common happenings makes it a worthwhile book