God is a concept by which we measure our pain

“God is a concept by which we measure our pain” is the expression the narrator recalls from John Lennon at a moment when his son Nic is using drugs again. Its significance lies in the reversal it frames: the narrator has never prayed and cannot conceive of a God to address, yet the fear of losing Nic brings him to prayer. God becomes, in this passage, not an assured answer but a measure of suffering and need.

Meaning in Context

The narrator remembers that many people prayed for him while he was in the hospital, and says he was enormously grateful to them. He himself did not pray: he had never done so, did not know how, and could not conceive of a God to whom he might speak. Against that history, the remembered line offers language for pain without resolving the question of belief. It connects the idea of God to what suffering makes a person feel and seek, rather than to certainty about divine presence.

The Return of Fear

The expression appears as the narrator confronts Nic’s renewed drug use and the knowledge that he cannot make it stop. He recognizes that ordinary signs of a stable life—a girlfriend, a job, money, friendships, and the desire to do right by loved ones—cannot make addiction safe. Once again, the next telephone call might be the one he has feared for years. In that moment, the narrator says, “I am praying.” The shift is not presented as a settled change in his beliefs; it is an act compelled by the possibility of loss.

From Reflection to Plea

The passage moves from Lennon's reflective formulation to the narrator’s repeated appeal: “Please God heal Nic.” Repetition turns the line from an idea about pain into a direct plea for his son. The narrator addresses whatever higher power might exist, recalling the promise of a listener offered in rehabs and meetings, while admitting that he cannot know whether anyone is listening. He sometimes repeats the plea without realizing he is saying it. The expression therefore sits at the hinge between intellectual distance and involuntary hope: pain does not provide proof of God, but it makes the narrator reach toward one.