Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
10 16 2026
Turning the Pain…into Purpose
A Christian perspective
What do you do with pain?
There are so many categories, and subsets… physical, mental, emotional, relational. The list can seem endless at times. And sometimes the pain isn’t just painful. It’s downright angry. Angry at what happened. Angry at what could have been prevented. Maybe even angry at God.
So how do you turn the angriness of a painful season, or the events you’re walking through, into something that has purpose? No, not just any purpose, but an eternal one… a Godly one. Something that matters to someone else.
And Lord, if I’m being transparent, I’d sure like some of that purpose to be for me, too.
Yesterday, I met with one of my best friends from high school. He lost his wife four and a half months ago to pancreatic cancer. She had actually beaten the cancer, but complications left her body unable to properly break down and absorb the nutrients she desperately needed. She literally starved to death. And part of his pain comes from what he believes were mistakes in diagnosing her condition and prescribing the food and medicine she needed.
Can you imagine the anger? The helplessness? The questions that have no satisfying answers?
More than 40 years of marriage. A lifetime of memories, routines, laughter, companionship, and love.
And suddenly, the person who shared all of that with you is gone.
That’s not just losing someone you love. That’s losing a part of the life you’ve known for most of your adult years.
This was one of his first times out in four and a half months. And as I sat with him, I couldn’t help but think… what do you do as a friend? I don’t believe he needed a Bible study. Or a list of Scriptures explaining how to deal with grief and anger, especially when that anger is only now beginning to subside.
He needed a friend.
Someone to come alongside him. Someone willing to be present. To listen as he wandered in and out of his feelings, sometimes making sense, sometimes not. Someone who wasn’t uncomfortable with his tears, his silence, or even his anger.
Sometimes people don’t need a preacher. They just need a friend.
And isn’t that part of what Christian fellowship is supposed to look like?
Romans 12:15 tells us to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Notice it doesn’t tell us to explain away their weeping. It tells us to enter into it with them.
Even Job’s friends got something right in the beginning. They sat with him for seven days and seven nights without saying a word because they saw how great his suffering was (Job 2:13). Their trouble began when they thought they had to explain it.
The Holy Spirit is present in those moments, too. We should never stop praying for our hurting friends, covering them, standing in the gap spiritually when they can barely find the strength to pray for themselves.
Moments will come when we can pray for them… and with them. Moments will come when the Holy Spirit gives us a word to share. Not a rehearsed script to deliver, even if that script is full of Scripture. But a word spoken in love, at the right moment, to a heart ready to receive it.
Friendship. Presence. Understanding. Compassion. Patience. And love overflowing.
What they need is time. Not just the passing of days that creates distance from that terrible moment, although that matters too.
They need a friend’s time.
Time to have someone walk beside them. Time to become part of something again when the biggest part of their life has just been taken away. Time to laugh without feeling guilty. Time to remember without being overwhelmed. Time to discover that life can still hold meaning, even when it will never look quite the same.
And sometimes that journey begins with a person collapsing before God in anger and grief.
God can handle that kind of realness.
But filling that emptiness will take time. And we shouldn’t confuse helping someone carry their pain with trying to take it away.
Galatians 6:2 tells us to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Maybe that’s where pain begins to find some eternal purpose. Not necessarily in understanding why it happened, but in discovering that God can use our presence to remind someone they haven’t been abandoned.
So let me ask you something. Who in your life is carrying a pain you cannot fix? Have you been trying to find the right words when what they really need is your time?
Perhaps the greatest gift we can give a hurting friend is not an answer, but a willingness to keep showing up.
And maybe, just maybe, loaning someone your faith for a while, when theirs is too weary to stand, is exactly
what the Great Physician ordered.
Father, give us hearts that listen before we speak, compassion that doesn’t grow impatient, and love that keeps showing up. Teach us to be Your presence in the lives of those who hurt. And when our own faith grows weary, thank You for the friends who will help carry us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
PS God doesn’t always restore what we’ve lost, but He can restore something within us that the loss nearly destroyed.
My prayer is that these devotionals do more than give you something to think about… that they draw you closer to Jesus Christ, deepen your love for Him, and encourage you to live out your faith.
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Thank you for allowing me the privilege of sharing this journey with you. You are prayed for, valued, and deeply appreciated.
Thank you for allowing me the privilege of sharing this journey with you. You are prayed for, valued, and deeply appreciated.
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