Written by Aaron Jones, LICSW (Senior Clinician)
“The cure for pain is in the pain/so it’s there you will find me,” cries the band mewithoutYou. The Latin root for the word cure is cura, the same for the words curious and concern, which all carry the general meaning of “to care.” For some, the arrival to counseling signifies an admission of defeat, hoping a kind stranger can take away the pain and get them back to having it all together. In the West and in the Church, our efforts to avoid pain know no bounds. Scrolling on phones and serving on Sundays, many of us report “I’m fine thanks how about you?” all the while anxious that the incongruence of our emotional world with our image of what a Good Christian should be might be exposed. But what if healing is found not by treating symptoms with contempt, but with care and compassion?
The 20th century French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan preferred to write the word symptom in its Latin form: sinthome. With a French accent, sinthome mirrors the French phrase saint homme, meaning “holy man.” Consider prophetic figures from the Bible, sent by God to insist on attention being given to those things which might harm his people: could anxiety and depression, lust and anger, be messages sent by God not to shame us but to show us areas of our heart he wants to meet with his love?
One man came to counseling to deal with uncharacteristic anger issues which kept surfacing at home. A small group leader at church and trained in ministry, he was a sincerely nice guy with a big smile and concern for those around him at work and church. But why could he not control his heated reactions when the kids wouldn’t listen? He sought help to decrease unwanted behaviors, but his anger stood as a holy man not to be ignored. With a dad who was at times demanding and dismissive, this man bore hurt and resentment, feeling insignificant and unheard. Being curious towards the pain he’d carried and vulnerable to admit fear of powerlessness and insignificance, he became open to receiving love in ways his heart had always needed as a young man. He worked through forgiveness towards his dad and came to realize how God was always present as a good father, close and attentive. The anger, its message heeded, was no longer needed.
In a divine plot twist, making the pain go away involves sitting with it long enough to hear its story. This company can feel treacherous and threaten to overwhelm us, and our defenses have been doing their best job to keep pain at bay. But Jesus is the great high priest who can sympathize with our symptoms. He feels what we feel, hurts where we hurt, and bore our diagnoses in his body on the cross. By surrendering our patterns of avoidance, naming our fears, and braving curiosity towards what hurts, our symptoms can be redeemed, becoming a holy wake-up call to the abundant life Jesus has always promised.