Page 63 - Biblical Counseling II-Textbook

Study Section 9: Pain
“ He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or
pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:4

9.1 Connect

“Ashlyn Blocker has a rare genetic disorder. She
feels neither pain or extreme hot and cold. She
must frequently be checked for accidentally self-
inflicted injuries that she herself cannot feel. ‘Some
people would say that feeling no pain is a good
thing,’ says her mother, ‘But no, it’s not. Pain is there for a
reason. It lets your body know something is wrong and it needs
to be fixed. I’d give anything for her to feel pain” (Myers, p.
142, 2012). (photo: nytimes.com)

If you are interested in more about Ashlyn’s story, watch this
short video. We would watch this if we were meeting together
in class. A doctor explains more about her condition and Ashlyn
and her family are interviewed. (4:55 long)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fVutLL7tCc

9.2 Objectives

1. The students should be able to describe the brain-pain connection.

2. The students should be able to explain three purposes for pain.

9.3 Pain

What influences our feelings of pain and how can we treat pain?
“Should we be thankful for occasional pain? Yes. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that
something has gone wrong. When drawing your attention to a burn, a break, or a sprain,
pain tells you to change your behavior immediately. The rare people born without the
ability to feel pain may experience severe injury or even die before early adulthood.
Without the discomfort that makes us shift positions, their joints can fail from excess strain. Without the
warnings of pain, infections can run wild, and injuries can accumulate” (Myers, p. 142, 2012).

“Many more people live with chronic (constant) pain, which is rather like an alarm that won’t shut off.
The suffering of those who cannot escape the pain of backaches, headaches and cancer-related
problems prompts two questions: what is pain? And how might we control it” (Myers, p. 142, 2012)?

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