Feeling Your Pain

Last night I was watching American Idol. It was painful to watch the three judges drag out the process for the benefit of getting emotional responses for the camera. One girl in particular took it hard. She virtually lost it as she went down the elevator, getting off at the wrong floor in her anguished state. Even when down in the waiting area with the others who were awaiting the judges decisions, she was lamenting their decision and how it would destroy her life.

"This was my dream, my only chance. Now, I've got to go back to my nowhere job and my nowhere life. How could they do this to me." This is from memory, so excuse anything I got wrong. As she continues her questioning, "What's wrong with me... Why ... I'm as good as anyone else here. I didn't even get any of my auditions on T.V.". About this time, another contestant tells her to take it easy. Wrong choice of words for the guy, for she started to tear into him before storming out of the exit.

At first, I was irritated at her. "This was your dream, all right, along with everyone else in the room. What nerve to complain to those who were facing the same outcome she received. You're just one more person in the room, what makes you think you're better than anyone else?" These were my thoughts last night. But something about her reaction stuck with me this morning. Was she really mad for not getting her break? Or was it something a little less obvious. Little by little it worked on me until I realized what she was wanting to hear. As the former President Clinton put it in a television address, "I feel your pain."

This young woman was wanting some kind of affirmation about herself as a person of worth. She wanted to be told she was someone worth listening to, not something to be glanced over for a second and tossed aside like life in general treats us. She was going back to her nowhere job and life like another piece of grit on the sandpaper of her life; just another body to walk past in life. Just another invisible person we pass by each day of our life; the waitress, the convenience store clerk, a person in a car on the road. And even as she lamented her fate to the other contestants, she found no sympathy, no affirmation, only people sitting with silent voices and fearful eyes. Her plight and sounding off only mixed more anxiety in with their hopes. For they all share the same hope and dream; that someone will recognize them and reach out to lift them from their life of obscurity.

And I was reminded of the following scripture:

As he went, the people pressed round him. And a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years and could not be healed by any one, came up behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment; and immediately her flow of blood ceased. And Jesus said, "Who was it that touched me?" When all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the multitudes surround you and press upon you!" But Jesus said, "Some one touched me; for I perceive that power has gone forth from me." And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace."Who was it that touched me?" When all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the multitudes surround you and press upon you!" But Jesus said, "Some one touched me; for I perceive that power has gone forth from me." And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace."

In reality, isn't this what we all hope for? This woman was looking for healing of a condition that had left her broken, unclean, ostracized and without hope. She was destined to die someday and, if lucky, to be buried in a pauper's mass grave; unknown, uncared for. Her condition left her separated from her community and, according to the thought of the day, separated from God. She reached out in desperation for healing of the body. That she received immediately.

But Jesus understood her deeper need. He stopped, even though he was en route to the bedside of a girl on the verge of death. He stopped to attend to this deep longing of her soul. Physical life is secondary to the spiritual life that is within us. It it this life that makes us complete as a person and able to feel joy in life. That is the need our churches need to respond to, to go beyond meeting the physical needs of the body to the spiritual needs of the souls. To reach out as the hand and voice of God and lift them from painful obscurity into the warming radiance of God loving attention. That is the need of the church, the people of God.