God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us and our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a death world.
C.S.Lewis
In the moment that I am writing this I am hurting. I hurt every hour of every day except for the grace of sleep. Doctors, specialists and non-specialists, alternative doctors and alternative therapies alike have never been able to uncover the cause, consequently, relief of any kind is minimal. It has gone on longer than most people would believe if I told them and I can hardly believe it either as I count back the years.
As I continue to be taught by my physical pain, I am also continuing to learn what it means that through the cross of Christ God suffered in the world and with the world. Our God is a suffering God or as A. N. Whitehead put it, God is "the fellow-sufferer who understands". I am not alone--the world is not alone--in its suffering. God is truly with us and for us.
Therefore the cross of Jesus Christ reveals that Christians do not worship the God of the ancient Greeks, who is above the world and is immune to her afflictions, but rather a God who is radically involved in the world through voluntary, vulnerable love. Because of this and in more ways than one, Christians can honestly say that God hurts when we hurt.
Of course, I ask myself sometimes, what good is a fellow-sufferer if God is unable to liberate either one of us from this pit of pain, because in my blackest moments I want more--I need more--than a simple fellow companion on this journey? I agree with the cry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that "only the suffering God can help", but if that is all that God is good for then, forgive me, but that is not enough. Until I remember the resurrection.
If the cross of Christ tells us that God suffers with this world then the resurrection tells us that God also liberates and transforms this world...and that gives me a flicker of hope. Just enough sometimes, to allow me to put one foot in front of the other, for one more day and sometimes, for one more hour. I have come to realize over the years that my pain runs straight through me into the heart of every other broken person on this planet even down to the core of the broken earth herself.
Romans chapter 8 tells us that the "whole creation groans" for healing and freedom and liberation, so I know...in my better moments...that I am in good company. Having said that, I am still gripped sometimes by existential moments of despair when death seems a faster salvation and a more humane one than living. Such is life. Telling the truth helps. Maybe hearing it will help you too.
Larry, I'm sorry for the pain you suffer. One would never know it, though, because you are such a cheerful person! Praying you will someday experience relief!
ReplyDeleteHi Rhonda,
DeleteThanks for your comment and compassion. as for being cheerful, being miserable all the time over my pain doesn't make it any better, though sometimes I do go down in the depths of misery. I just try not to stay there. There is a little saying that is very apropos. Pain is inevitable, misery is a choice. I try not to choose misery.