Playing Hurt
RECENTLY I READ ABOUT a professional hockey player who is a star of the NHL team in the metro area near where I live. The measure of this man's stature as a hockey player was not his salary, number of goals scored, or minutes on the ice. Rather, the local sports-writer nominated him for greatness because of his ability to "play hurt."
Consider the symptoms of this athlete after receiving a hard check in the first period of play in a recent hockey game: He couldn't take a deep breath, he had bad bruises on his torso, and his shoulder and rib cage felt as though they had been through a meat grinder. His own description of his injuries made me cringe: "I couldn't breathe. It was lucky my head didn't land in the boards. I would have been dead, almost."
He was finished for the rest of that game.
Now consider the prognosis for this athlete: he was expected to return to the lineup after missing one game. Two, at most. To athletes, playing hurt is a badge of honor, reflecting the measure of their inner drive. The team needs them. They have to compete in the event. The work has to go on.
That's also true in ministry. Sometimes we just have to play hurt. In fact, we often have to play hurt. Some days I think this is what pastoral work is all about. Church conflicts leave scars from which some never fully recover. A battered soul doesn't heal quickly, yet most of us have to put food on the table—every day we go to the work that causes us pain. To stay in pastoral work means to play hurt in pastoral work.
We are often called to preach, pray, teach, visit, counsel, marry, and bury with wounded hearts.
A close friend is a retired pastor who is still going strong in his early eighties. He and I often talk about ministry, the good and the bad ...
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