Spiritual Pain

Posted 11 months, 1 week ago at 7:11 pm. 0 comments

I am currently reading Philip Yancey’s book “Where Is God When It Hurts“. I had to buy it after asking my friends if anyone had a copy. I was fairly suprised that no-one had the book, but it’s probably quite telling about Western Evangelical Christianity.

I’m definitely finding the book interesting but so far it has been about physical pain rather than emotional pain so I’ve not got alot out of it yet. But it got me thinking about pain differently. Philip Yancey suggests that pain is a wonderful example of God’s awesome creation - God created pain! The nervous system in each one of us protects us from further harm by detecting heat, cold, pressure, friction, etc. Pain is a warning system. He also suggests that fear, loneliness and guilt are good as they help us to make better decisions.

If all that is uncomfortable, read the book!

I started wondering about spiritual pain. If we are also spirits, can we suffer spiritual pain? What could cause spiritual pain? How would it feel? How would we describe it? Would there be another set of words?

When I picture what happened to me when Amy died I imagine myself being torn to pieces from the inside out. I’ve never been through such an emotional event before so I find it difficult to describe my feelings which makes it even harder to distinguish between my emotional pain and my spiritual pain.

All I know right now is that it’s very painful and confusing.