You sit with a pain you cannot name, a hurt on your left side that has no clear cause, and that very not‑knowing gnaws at you as much as the ache itself. You search for a reason and find none, and the darkness of that mystery makes the burden double. I do not come with a physician’s explanation, but I come with a word that has steadied many a soul in rougher waters than these. The ship that has never been out to sea wonders how any vessel leaks in a storm, but the vessel that is actually afloat in deep water learns how the timbers hold and what keeps anything at all from sinking. You are in deep water now, and you are learning that you are not your own keeper, and that is the first mercy hidden in the trial.
Our Lord does not promise to tell us the root of every affliction. He does not spread the whole map before us and point to the spot where the road grew rough. But He does promise this: “Call unto Me, and I will answer you.” The text does not say, “Call unto Me with a full explanation of your trouble,” nor “Call unto Me when you have traced the pain to its lair.” It simply says, “Call unto Me.” The unknown is the very porch where prayer is born. You do not know what is wrong, but He knows. You cannot see the arrow, but He saw it leave the bow. And His invitation is not held back until you can describe the wound with precision, it stands wide open for you now, just as you are, with your half‑formed words and your bewildered heart.
Think of that for a moment: the great God who numbers the stars and calls them all by name says to you, “Call unto Me.” The same Lord who held seven stars in His right hand, in John’s vision, holds you. And the right hand is the hand of strength and of favour. If the star is in His right hand, no power in heaven or earth or hell can pluck it out. Your safety is not in your grip on Him, but in His grip on you, and His grip never weakens, never slackens, never fails. You may feel as though you are tumbling through empty space, but you are held fast by the hand that upholds the universe.
And then there is the quietness of His knowing. One of the deepest comforts we can have is that our Lord Himself, when He hung upon the cross, looked upon men who were doing their worst and said, “They know not what they do.” He saw ignorance wrapped around sin, and He met it with forgiveness. How much more does He now look upon your ignorance, not a moral ignorance, not a rebellion, but the simple, heavy not‑knowing of a suffering child, and meet it with compassion? He does not chide you for lacking an explanation. He does not fold His arms and wait until you can name the trouble. He draws near in the dark and says, “I know. And what you do not know, I know.”
Your body is a mystery even to yourself. There are depths within you that you have never explored, and this pain is one of the unplumbed places. But the depths of your frame are all naked and open to Him. He who knit you together in your mother’s womb knows every sinew, every nerve, every secret corner where this hurt has made its nest. And what is more, He knows the remedy. The leaves of the tree that grow in the Paradise of God are for the healing of the nations, not for the healing of the slightly unwell only, but for the healing of every ill that sin has brought into the world, including the ones we cannot label or explain. Some healing comes swift and open; some comes slow and hidden; but all healing is His.
While you wait, do not let the enemy turn your ignorance into a breeding ground for fear. It is written that we cannot fully know our own hearts, let alone our own bodies, and that the keenest griefs are often silent. The sorrow that babbles is a shallow brook; silent sorrow is deep. You are not shallow, then, you are in a deep place where God meets deep‑called souls. Even the eagle, the royal bird, soars alone into the blue. So the child of God, when pressed into a singular trouble, often finds that the path goes solitary for a while, so that the only voice heard is the Shepherd’s.
And He is a Shepherd‑King. He does not drive His sheep with a whip and a shout; He leads them with His own presence, and His presence is the safest place in all the world. When the sheep cannot see the path and cannot guess what lies ahead, the Shepherd’s nearness is enough. You do not need to know what causes the pain; you need to know who holds you in the midst of it. And He does. His hand is underneath you, even on the left side where the hurt lives. His ear is bent low. His heart is warm toward you.
Perhaps the sharpest point of your present trial is the feeling that you are alone inside it, that no one else can reach the place where you suffer. And in a measure that is true. Every man must bear his own burden, and the inner chamber of pain is a room no other human can fully enter. But there is One who enters. The Man of Sorrows was acquainted with grief of body and of soul. He knows what it is to be pierced, to be bruised, to be utterly weary. And He is not a distant spectator; He is the High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Right now He is at the Father’s side, and His intercession is not a cold recital of facts, it is the pleading of a living heart that has felt the nails.
Do you see what this means? The Lord who bids you call is the Lord who has already entered the deepest darkness ahead of you. And His prayer for you is not, “Father, explain to them why they suffer,” but “Father, forgive, heal, uphold, sanctify the trial, and bring them safely home.” He is not puzzled by what baffles you. He is not wringing His hands over a mystery He cannot solve. He stands and feeds His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God, and you are part of that flock. Because He stands, you shall abide. Because He lives, you shall live also.
And what shall you do while you wait for the lifting of the pain? Call. Call as a child calls in the night, not needing to explain the shape of the fear, only needing the Father’s voice. Call and then be still. The quietness of faith is not passivity; it is the calm of a soul that has handed the unknown over to the One who knows. Let the pain drive you to Him, not away from Him. Let it be a black‑edged envelope that contains a love‑letter, for many a saint has found that affliction was the chariot that carried Christ nearer.
He shall stand and feed you. The feeding may not look as you expect. It may be a handful of quiet assurance when you wake in the night. It may be a single verse that drops like honey into your mind. It may be strength simply to endure another hour. But it will be enough. He does not starve His own. And the day is coming, oh, lift your eyes to it!, when the inhabitant shall not say, “I am sick,” and the people that dwell in that land shall be forgiven their iniquity. Meanwhile, He forgives, He heals, He carries. The left side and the right side alike are in His keeping.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, You who hold the stars and know the name of every wound, look upon Your child who suffers an unknown pain. You have not left us to guess in the dark; You have come to be our light and our companion. Quiet the heart that is troubled by what it cannot name. Lay Your right hand, the hand of strength, the hand that was pierced, upon the hurt that hides on the left side. Whether it be small or great in its cause, bring Your healing, Your peace, and Your nearness. And until the pain lifts, lift the soul above it. Teach us to trust where we cannot trace, and to rest where we cannot understand. For Your name’s sake, and in Your faithful keeping, we pray. Amen.