Life in the shadow of pain is dark. I feel as if I am standing beneath a monstrous cloud which inherently blocks the golden rays of the sun. Even worse, I can see the sun shining on things around me. Purple and yellow Violets dance, butterflies drink deep of their nectar, and the creek bed giggles and frolics in the warm and inviting rays. I have stretched wide my arms to reach into that golden and glorious realm but I cannot touch it. I am alone. Forsaken. Broken.
Despair has called my named. It is not the wretched gurgle one would expect, but rather the sickly-sweet song of respite. It promises relief by a thousand vices, but I know they are all lies. I know because I have tried them all, and none of them have given relief.
Where is God? Is He is hiding? Is he is tied up with more important matters? Maybe He doesn’t exist. I mean, I don’t feel him. He isn’t answering my prayers. Obviously this Christian thing is crap.
On Sunday morning I rode my bike beneath this cloud and listened to Dr. Bernard Leikind address the problem of pain and suffering. You can read more here.
The more I listened, the more I began to question my own faith. A question popped into my mind, “Is Christianity really nothing more than a hopeful wish?” This question led to other questions.
“Have I hung all my hopes on a fantasy?”
“Is pain and suffering really all there is until I die–interspersed only every so often when the clouds of pain dissipate?”
I considered the wheel-crushed bullfrogs on the road as evidence of this. There were hundreds. And I thought, “This is my life”. I’m just hopping down the road waiting for the truck tire to smoosh me into oblivion.
And this is how Dr. Leikind addresses the problem, “To confront human evil, to respond to human suffering—our own or others—and to cope with natural disasters, we’re on our own. We must deal with these afflictions individually and collectively. We can’t rely on supernatural powers to help us.”
How am I supposed to respond to that?
So I considered all the different shapes and sizes of pain in the world and I asked myself more hard questions.
“Is there any drug powerful enough to wipe away the shame of being raped?”
“Is there any pleasure known to mankind that will erase the discomfiture of being wheelchair-bound for life?”
“What human being(much less an entire community) can salve the wound of infertility?”
Honestly, I imagine collective humanity holding hands and singing “Kumbayah”, except when the song ends, I still hurt.
This must be why we—as human beings—long for help. Otherwise, why do we tell stories about super heroes? Why else would do we look to the sky and wonder if our moments have meaning and purpose? If God is nothing more than an invention borne out of hope for relief of pain and suffering, a nice little myth to give us peace in knowing that when we die we don’t simply cease to exist, then I am absolutely terrified. If God is not real, I feel totally screwed.
What about Karma?
I have a few friends who believe very strongly in Karma. So I researched what Karma actually is. And to be honest, it’s a nice thought, actually, until I follow it through to its logical conclusion. For how could I ever do enough good to make up for all my mistakes? Wouldn’t I always be paying for my actions or in-actions. And, how many lives will it take to get it right? 5? 10? 1,000? Eesh.
And how does Karma comfort me when I face of the man who murdered my child? Does the thought of him as a dung beetle in his next life help me deal with the echoing void in my heart? How do I deal with the fact that my mistakes probably earn me the life of a dog that is chained in a backyard at the next go-round?
Amazing Grace
After the events in Orlando, a friend of mine told me she couldn’t stop crying. Her brother is gay. And the pain(born of fear) is just too much for her to bear. She told me, however, that she was comforted by the song, Amazing Grace. I was surprised to hear that, especially since she is not a Christian. And I wondered why. Is it the melody? It’s actually not a very upbeat song musically speaking. If not the melody, then it must be the words. So, even though I’ve sung that song before, I looked up the words. You can read them(and listen to the music) here.
I asked my friend if she knew the story of John Newton—how he was at one point a very wicked man(slave-owner, drunk). She did not. And I wondered why she was so comforted without knowing the story behind it. John Newton knew he was a wretch and had been forgiven by God for all of his transgressions. That’s why he wrote the song. He even went on to participate in the abolition movement, after participating in the slave trade for years. That is why the song chokes me up. It would be like the perpetrator of the Orlando shootings coming out and saying, “I know I killed all of those people, but hey, I’m saved now. God forgave me.” That kind of grace is hard, right? I mean, I don’t know that I could give grace to someone who took the life of my child.
It’s interesting to me the different reactions people have had about the shootings on social media. My favorite was the quote from Fred Rogers. I saw it on page after page. Now, maybe my feeds are different than your feeds, but most of the people I know posted encouraging words of prayer and solidarity for the families. Mrs. Rogers was right—there are so many helpers! But where was the grace for the family of the perpetrator of the killings?
Crickets
And yet my Bible seems to indicate that God is there with them too. If grace means “unmerited favor”, and Jesus took that terrible transgression(murder!) and would forgive even the murderer… Wow. When I consider that God himself paid the price for the murderer’s sin so that even he could be forgiven… Why, I don’t know anything more amazing than that.
But I’m still hurting. And he still hasn’t taken away my personal pain. Yes, pain asks the hard questions and pain demands real answers, and not just a fluffy pillow(by way of a bottle of pills, an ice cream cone or even a smaller waist).
This morning I opened my devotional book because its a habit, not because I really wanted to. I was directed to read Genesis 3, in which the curse imposed on mankind is described. It describes the story of an otherworldly beast(Satan), who, for no other reason than because he can) tricks Adam and Eve into forfeiting paradise with God forever. And then, in that moment of discovery(by God), where he curses Adam and Eve and the whole planet, the Creator of human beings also promises to defeat Satan and deliver men and women from the same curse(sin) because He love them so much and He knows they can’t save themselves. My devotional book reminded me that God loves to rescue me. So why am I still waiting for relief?
I think it’s because the world is still cursed. I think it’s because sin is so real. The Bible says(and it seems about right to me) that all of creation is groaning as in the pains of labor because of sin. And until Jesus returns(as he promised when he walked the earth), we will continue to deal with pain and suffering. The good news is, even in the midst of pain, fear, uncertainty and ghastly sorrow, if we choose to love and trust Him, he promises to walk through it with us. So even though I’m still hurting, I feel his presence. He is telling me, “Margaret, I love you. And that is enough.”
This world certainly feels cursed to me sometimes(especially today). And when I consider all that the Bible says – about a God who loves people and desires to save them from a mess of their own making—going so far as to bridge the gap himself—all so I can have a love-relationship with Him…. Well, its kind-of humbling. And wonderful. And when I consider that Satan keeps working every day to destroy humanity, (because he hates them), but that God has already defeated him(through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus), and all I need to do is love God and trust Him…. Well, that kind of grace really is quite amazing.
And I suppose I could believe in Karma, or in myself and the ability to be good, or even in collective society(as Dr. Bernard Leikind says I should), but the thing is, those things suck. Because I know myself. And I know the people in society. And the idea of Karma really freaks me out(I would totally end up as a spider beneath someone’s shoe).
So today, after all the questions, I still arrive at the same answer: Jesus. It’s not always easy or intuitive to do so and it sure doesn’t always come naturally. But I choose to believe in him and love him because I feel loved by Him. He is my super hero—my ‘so-much-better-than-Superman’—superhero. And when the pain is deep, long-lasting and cruel, He doesn’t leave me or forsake me.
Today if you are hurting, consider that there is a love so strong and able, that it can forgive the unforgivable. And not only forgive, but make it possible to be forgiven.
Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his wounds we are healed.”
Today I didn’t reach far enough to feel the sunbeam. My arms are too short and the cloud was too big. But Jesus joined me under the cloud. He made a way to be near me so that I could feel the warmth of his love on my face. And the warmth of the Son is so much brighter and more beautiful than the sun in the sky that I completely forgot I ever needed it in the first place.
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