It sounds strange – let go of pain. Who would want to hold on to it? But we are complicated people. Sometimes pain grabs us and it won’t let go; sometimes it grabs us and we grab it right back. And we have our reasons.

“I am looking for a witness.” One toddler axiom is this: Mom must be a witness to my pain. When a child gets hurt, he or she seeks out a sympathetic adult, preferably Mom. Once Mom is in view the child, tearless up to that point, suddenly breaks out into sobs, moans, howls and ear-piercing wails. The child is holding on to pain until the right person witnesses it. Pain is best shared.

Dr. Tim Lane and Aaron Sironi lead an hour-long workshop on how church leaders can help members of their congregations through this most difficult and painful of issues.

Sexual assault is an invasive event of traumatic evil. You were victimized, and now you are suffering.  Whenever sexual abuse occurs, love is not part of the equation. Rather, the perpetrator uses power, domination, and control to injure innocent victims.

“It could be worse. Imagine if you broke both legs.”

We have some odd ways of cheering each other up.

Most of our bone-headed comments to suffering people are offered with passable intentions, and most of those comments are judged by their recipients as misguided rather than malicious, but it sure would be nice to improve our record of encouragement in the midst of pain.

We could all generate a Top Ten List of words we spoke or received that make us shudder when we think about them. Here is one that, I suspect, makes a lot of lists.

“What is God teaching you through this?”