Pastors & Chronic Pain Sufferers, Part One
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This is part one of an article written by Jeremy Wright to “help pastors better understand the struggle of chronic pain sufferers under their care and to give a voice to church members who feel forgotten and misunderstood.”
Jeremy and his wife, Alicia, live in Memphis, TN, with their four children, where he serves as a counselor with Courage Christian Counseling and as an elder overseeing pastoral care and administration in their local church. You can email Jeremy at: Jeremy@couragechristiancounseling.com
Introduction:
For most pastors who serve in normative-sized churches, pastoral ministry is rarely boring. You wear a number of different hats for people, and it isn’t uncommon for a week to include meeting some needs you didn’t anticipate and for which seminary didn’t prepare you. If someone has a flat tire, we help them change it. We fix it. Most of us know how to help with that, and online tutorials could get the rest of us through it. But what if the entire tire falls off? What about when the axle drops out of the rear end? We’re not pulling out our phone to look up a “how-to” at that moment; we’re using it to dial a tow truck. We refer that kind of care to a skilled professional.
Living with chronic pain/illness is a life with missing parts: The wheels are falling off. The car started veering off the road a while ago. Many times, the sufferer(s) are struggling to understand how to adapt, much less how to invite others in or to explain themselves. And so pastoral care for those suffering with chronic pain and illness can look different than your standard models of care, because the journey that they’re on is so wildly different than the majority of others.
Understanding Their Journey
If you’re blessed to be ignorant of how life works with chronic pain/illness, let me introduce you to a different way of life by way of personal testimony. Our experience is similar to countless men and women, many of whom would love to be more faithful on your pews, in small groups, and on mission trips.
CDC statistics make it clear that you’re likely shepherding those in this demographic when they share that between 2019 and 2021, the prevalence of chronic pain among U.S. adults ranged from 20.5% to 21.8%, and the prevalence of high-impact chronic pain ranged from 6.9% to 7.8%. (See source).
Thanksgiving 2019 was the first sign of major trouble for my wife when our holiday plans were interrupted by unexplainable pain in her legs and feet. The nagging pains she’d had for the last few months were now much, much worse. That marked the beginning of a journey of countless doctor visits, tests, and specialists that continues still.
The first two years were optimistic: we’ll find the source of this pain and a fix for it. There is always another doctor, another test, another option. By year three, we were less optimistic, and the pain was so severe that we’d lost all sense of normalcy in our previous routines. We wanted to be able to go out to eat as a family, host dinners in our home, or even just attend church functions like before, but year three marked our slow embrace of disability and a new identity.
We couldn’t be or do the things we used to be and do. Coming to this realization took us longer than we like to admit, because the optimism of finding a cure keeps you hanging on to the hope of things returning to normal. Unlike a sudden accident or major life event, our experience with chronic pain was gradual, and it required us to adapt and reshape our lives over and over again. Now we’ve settled into a diagnosis that tells us that our lives will continue to be more limited year after year. Our “new normal” will continue to be a worse version of the normal we’ve known before.
How Does That Shape Pastoral Care?
If shepherding requires us to know our sheep, then knowing the unique, life-altering challenges of chronic pain/illness can quickly become one of the most important things to know about those who are afflicted. You should know that for many who suffer their wounds are not visible.
Severe nerve pain makes it impossible for my wife to attend church gatherings every week, but for years, when she was able to make it and wasn’t yet using a wheelchair, she looked perfectly healthy, wearing a smile and glad to be there. What our friends couldn’t see was the inner strength it took to prepare for the outing and the days of discomfort that she’d feel after as she paid the price of “not neglecting to gather together.” This kind of quiet suffering is hard to see, but it is pivotal to understand if we’re going to care well.
In Part Two, I will share three life-altering changes people with chronic pain and illness are facing that those in pastoral care should be aware of.
See Similar Post: Approaching Church Leaders About Chronic Illness Support
Listen to this In The Seams podcast interview with Jeremy Wright about the impact of chronic illness/pain on spouses.
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David Heflin
David Heflin is the founder, former president, and current executive director for Broken and Mended. He is married to Katie and has three kids. David was a preacher for over 20 years until he stepped down to focus fully on the mission of Broken and Mended. He started Broken and Mended in 2018 after being inspired by his own battle with chronic pain to connect other hurting people to Jesus and each other. David has a B.A. in Bible from Oklahoma Christian University and a Master of Arts in Religion from Azusa Pacific University. He resides in Woodward, OK.
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