When pain lingers longer than we expect, it can leave us asking hard questions with no easy answers. Linda Kline shares from her own journey through ongoing health struggles, reminding us that healing is not always quick or predictable. Through hospital visits, procedures, and long days of suffering, she discovered that simple answers often fall short. What we need most in seasons of pain is not explanations, but presence. Like Job’s friends at their best, we are called to sit with one another in the struggle, resisting the urge to fix what only God can carry.
These hard-won lessons point us back to a steady truth: even in the valleys, we are not alone. God holds us, even when the night feels long.
This article originally appeared in the Just Between Us Weekly Digital Magazine.
by Linda Kline
When pain lingers longer than expected, these hard-won lessons offer hope for the journey.
If anyone tells you they have the definitive answer to the problem of pain, bless them and back away slowly. Here are a few honest truths that have helped one woman through her roughest valleys.
Psalm 30:5 says, “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” What this encouraging verse doesn’t say is: “How long is that night?” and “When will it finally be morning?”
I spent the first half of 2024 going back and forth between West Chester Hospital and Cleveland Clinic. I have had two surgeries, endured multiple medical procedures, been jabbed with lots and lots of needles, and seen many, many specialists.
But this morning I sat on my deck in the sunshine and celebrated the fact that I am finally not in constant pain.
I am not screaming on a regular basis.
I am no longer losing terrifying amounts of blood.
I am not constantly repeating a mantra of “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.” (Friends have recommended far more colorful language.)
I am still weak and wobbly, and there are more appointments and treatments, and trips up to Cleveland Clinic ahead. But the tide has turned, and I am not nearly as incapacitated.
My heart breaks for friends and acquaintances who are also in pain. They hold so much physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and relational pain with the accompanying exhaustion, conflict, and questions.
If anyone tells you they have the definitive answer to the problem of pain, bless them and back away slowly. Beware of pat answers and anything stitched on a pillow or plastered on a bumper sticker or meme.
Job had the most amazing friends who “sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was” (Job 2:13). The problem began when they decided they could explain what God was doing and why it was all Job’s fault.
Want more encouragement? Read the full article in Just Between Us Magazine on Substack—your weekly source of biblical encouragement for women.
