How do you deal with your pain in the middle of the night when there’s not enough staff in the emergency room and you have to wait in excruciating pain for five hours? Then you see the mom sitting across the room with her crying baby. You can’t help but wonder what’s wrong, how long the crying has been fraying this poor young mother’s nerves, and what prognosis the doctor must give her later.

What do you do if you have to watch your baby suffer? What do you tell her if you know the outcome is not going to be what you’ve hoped and prayed for? Or maybe you’re never given a diagnosis and you have to live your life wondering if the horrible waves of pain will come again with no warning.

Then you get pulled up short when you enter a tiny room to wait for the doctor and you see the representation of Jesus on the wall. You realize that God had to watch His Son suffer; then He chose to turn away, and He did it all for you. How can you appreciate the depths of sorrow God can feel not only for His only begotten Son but also for you, His beloved child?

It’s difficult to deal with your own pain, but it’s also extremely difficult to watch someone you love go through pain that you can’t stop, that you know you have no control over. That was the task I chose last week. As difficult as it is to endure, God always brings something good out of the pain in our lives and in the lives of those we love. At the very least, we can learn some important life lessons by watching and listening to others as they process their pain.

Here are twenty important things I learned (or was reminded of) while spending twenty-four hours in the hospital with my friend:

1. Loving people is more important than doing important things!
2. When I’m in pain, I can be extremely self-absorbed.
3. Five hours of pain, even a full twenty-four hours of excruciating pain, is nothing compared to what Jesus endured for me.
4. The little things are what make the difference in life.
5. Loving people is more important than doing important things!
6. Babies can still make me smile—even during times of great pain.
7. Friends & family are the most important assets we have.
8. God is still in charge.
9. Loving people is more important than doing important things!
10. I don’t have to allow my pain, whether insignificant or immense, to take my attention off the only One who can heal me.
11. I may get a spiritual do-over because of Jesus but my body may not get a physical do-over, so I should take good care of the one I’ve been given.
12. It’s important to care well today for the things and, especially, for the people I’ve been given because they can all be gone in a heartbeat.
13. Loving people is more important than doing important things!
14. All the stuff I worry about and the things I think I have to have and do are nothing compared to the joy of being there for someone else.
15. When I’m in enough pain, it doesn’t feel like a bad option at all to think about God calling me home.
16. It feels much better to have a clean kitchen when friends stop by unexpectedly to visit the sick.
17. Loving people is more important than doing important things!
18. God still reigns in heaven—and in my heart—even when all is not right with the world.
19. It can be a joy to let people have the run of my house and my heart, but first I have to give them permission to do so.
20. Loving people is the important thing!