Coping with Pain -- two views:

In 1895  Andrew Murray was in England suffering from a terribly painful back, the result of an injury incurred years before. One morning while eating breakfast in his room, his hostess told him of a woman downstairs who was in great trouble and wanted to know if he had any advice for her. He handed her a paper he had been writing on and said, “Give her this advice I am writing down for myself. It may be that she’ll find it helpful.”

This is what he wrote:

“In time of trouble, say, ‘First he brought me here. If it is by his will I am in this strait place, in that place I will rest.” Next, say, “He will keep me here in his love, and give me grace in this trial to behave as his child.’ Then, say, ‘He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me lessons he intends me to learn, and working in me the grace he means to bestow.’ And last, say, ‘I am here by God’s appointment, in his keeping, under his training, for his time.’”

(Quoted in _Calm My Anxious Heart_ by Linda Dillow, p. 171)

And from a one who also knows pain, this reflection:

anything but that

“Send anything but that,” I cried,
and still the thing I feared did come;
I watched its shadow rise
and shrank in terror from the blow:
“Oh, Lord, this thing I cannot bear!”

And yet Thy tender love did send it me
in answer to my prayer.

My prayer! My cry Thou heedest not
and leav’st me sick, in pain.

And still Thy presence sears and binds –
is all my praying vain?

And still it comes, this fearful dark;
I cannot stem the tide.

“No more,” I cry, “I know my strength!”

And then, Thou, God replied,
“Thy frenzied strength thou knowest, ah
but thou dost not know Mine.”

Barbara Black 1991 (Taken from her poetry, In Affliction)