Episode 36: Pain Is Sacred (A Father Son Conversation on Pain, Shame, and Healing)

What if pain isn't something to run from, but something sacred?

In this episode, Ben invites his dad, Aric, into a heartfelt and honest conversation about a difficult and discouraging summer: another surgery, a long recovery, frustration at work, and the quiet "civil war" of believing he should have this figured out by now. Together they explore what Jesus invites us into when we stop numbing, minimizing, and ignoring our pain, and start moving toward it.

Along the way: a prayer Ben wrote in the middle of it all, Romans 5:3–5, why "our hearts are made for Eden," and a gift for your toolkit: the one little word that tells you shame is in the room.

Will there be pain in our return to Eden? That question started as a provocative thought experiment from Aric: ponder the idea for a moment that there may be pain in heaven. Ben reacted strongly. And then he started to wonder why it bothered him so much.

Instead of coming in with a tidy outline, Ben decides to "unload the dump truck" and invite his dad into all that began to surface as he wrestled with that question. It's been a difficult and discouraging summer, and the thought experiment took him straight into the very real pain he's been living through. So rather than have a theoretical, theological discussion, Ben and Aric talk about the pressures, frustrations, and discouragement he's facing as a young man, in a summer Ben describes as "relentless."

Aric names what so many of us live with: a civil war on the inside, where we feel the pain and then shame ourselves for feeling it.

Listen in as a father and son share an honest conversation and find their way toward Jesus as they move toward the pain, not away from it.

Whether you're a dad, a mom, a son or daughter, or someone walking through a hard season of your own, we hope this conversation reminds you that your pain is welcome here, and that Jesus meets us right in the middle of it.

In this episode

- [00:00] Cold open: Ben's prayer

- [00:37] Welcome, and the recording we scrapped

- [03:48] Pain is sacred

- [09:51] Ben's summer: surgery number seven

- [24:52] Civil war on the inside

- [28:43] Frustrated at work

- [37:45] Ben's "I know…" prayer

- [44:30] Romans 5:3–5: rejoicing in suffering?

- [50:03] Our hearts are made for Eden

- [56:50] A gift for your toolkit: the word "should"

- [1:01:17] Feel it, confess your need, grieve it

- [1:07:48] Healing comes in cycles

- [1:10:10] A father's encouragement

Mentioned in this episode

- Romans 5:3–5 (read on air from the ESV)

- Ronald Rolheiser, on the season of "getting your life together"

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