the gift of pain
Everything in us wants to avoid pain. But what if pain is one of God’s greatest gifts? Dr. Paul Brand spent decades treating patients with leprosy and made a surprising discovery. The disease itself wasn’t responsible for many of the devastating deformities people associated with it. Instead, the greatest danger was the loss of pain. Without pain, people unknowingly injured themselves over and over because nothing warned them to stop. Pain, Brand concluded, isn’t our enemy. It’s one of God’s greatest protective gifts.
If physical pain protects our bodies, I began wondering whether emotional pain serves a similar purpose. What if grief is doing something for us instead of simply happening to us? Today marks the one-year anniversary of losing my twin sons Everett and Lewis the day after they were born. Over the past year I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s anything good about the pain I’m feeling and will most likely carry for the rest of my life. My search for an answer has taken me to some unexpected places, including a podcast.
All There is with Anderson Cooper is a deeply personal podcast exploring the complexities of grief and loss. It features emotional conversations with notable figures who share their own experiences with life-altering loss. The first episode I listened to was Stephen Colbert who, at 10 years old, lost his dad and two of his brothers in a plane crash. Another featured Andrew Garfield reflecting on the loss of his mother. Listening to their words has helped me to acknowledge and embrace my grief. And the thing I keep coming back to repeatedly is this: deep grief is a reflection of profound love.
While it is an agonizing paradox, the ability to feel so intensely is a testament to our humanity and capacity for longing. For me, the pain itself has become a gift because it reminds me how deeply my sons were loved.
As painful as it is, I don’t want to lose what this grief represents because it is the love I still carry for my sons. In their absence, grief has become one of the ways I remain connected to them. Grief is what keeps their memory alive and ensures that I never forget them.
My tears are a beautiful representation of love, rather than something to hide or apologize for.
That doesn’t make grief any easier. I’m learning to accept the gift of grief, but it’s still hard. I’m only a year into this and most of the time my healing looks more like survival. But I have to remind myself that honoring my sons means more than surviving. It means learning to live fully. But living fully doesn’t mean leaving grief behind. It means learning to carry it differently. It means allowing sorrow to become a companion rather than a captor. It means discovering that joy and heartache are not opposites but can exist together. It means trusting that even this wound can become a place where I encounter Jesus.
Dr. Brand taught that pain protects what we cannot protect ourselves. Over this past year, I’ve begun to wonder whether grief does something similar.
It protects love.
It reminds us that someone mattered.
It refuses to let our hearts become numb.
I would never have chosen this pain. If I could hold Everett and Lewis again, I would gladly surrender every lesson grief has taught me.
But since this grief is now part of my story, I pray it becomes more than suffering. I pray it becomes a pathway to deeper love, greater compassion, and closer communion with Christ.
Perhaps that is the gift hidden inside pain. The promise of the gospel is not that our wounds disappear. It is that Christ enters them with us. The One who bore scars of His own reminds us that suffering is never the end of the story. Resurrection is.
Emmett Richardson joined Barnabas Triad is 2021. He earned his MA in counseling from Covenant Theological Seminary and his undergraduate degree from Presbyterian College. Prior to counseling, Emmett spent 5 years working in college ministry. Emmett is married to Molly and they live in Greensboro. Outside of counseling, Emmett enjoys going on walks with their dog, exploring local restaurants and coffee shops, and spending time with friends and family.
