Ashlyn Blocker’s life dramatically demonstrates that pain is a special gift from God that protects us. Ashlyn can’t feel pain. Her parents knew there was something wrong when she placed her hand on a hot pressure washer and felt nothing. When her baby teeth came in, Ashlyn would wake up with swollen and bloody lips from chewing on them in her sleep. While eating she unknowingly bites through her tongue. Her food has to be cooled to prevent the scalding of her mouth. Ashlyn’s mother said: “Some people would say that’s a good thing. But no, it’s not. Pain’s there for a reason. It lets your body know something’s wrong and needs to be fixed. I’d give anything for her to feel pain.”1 What is true of physical pain and the body is true for emotional pain and the soul. Pain is a gift from God to let us know that something isn’t right, that something in our life needs attention and fixing.

Feel—Then Heal

When we feel our lives, we’re tuned in to pain as it emerges and can resolve it before our lives begin to revolve around it. But if we aren’t allowed to, or choose not to feel the pain, we’ll add hurt on top of injury and inflict difficulty and conflict on our lives, just like little Ashlyn who continued to injure herself. Pain is a gift. It’s not one we actively seek, but when it appears in our lives, we need to react appropriately, rather than deny or neglect it.

This means we must never shame people who don’t or can’t instantly feel the joy that awaits them on the other side of their pain and agony. If we do, we’ll push them into a place where they walk around with ungrieved losses and unresolved pain. This pain is never buried dead. It’s buried alive and must be fed every day. It’ll drive a person to eat, drink, spend money, have sex, gamble, and do a thousand other things for relief. You must feel before you can heal, or you’ll stay wounded and in turn would others who get too close.

Dying To Self

Our feelings have a place, but they shouldn’t be the entire focus of our lives. That’s really what those who suggest we don’t need to feel are warning against. They’re warning against a life in which everything’s based on how we feel. However, by suggesting that people ignore their emotions, deny the depths of them, and attempt to move on, they create the very problem they’re trying to prevent. We must feel our lives and live them authentically, with nothing hidden and nothing buried. Living like that enables us to have feelings without being defined solely by them.