The end of an espousal...
Suffering is part of life. All around and within, my eyes see suffering. Poetry of countless ages speak of the griefs and scorns that man is heir to experience upon this earth. These wounds are both temporary and eternal. There will come a time though that we will look upon our wounds and they will no longer hurt. Until that day, the pains of our past, the miseries of our present, and the grief of what lies ahead is ours to bear...but not alone. The sadness comes not in the wounds and the suffering but in the myth that these sufferings are ours alone. This is an awful deceit and one that poisons man to his innermost core. We cannot explain why we must suffer and so we inevitably continue to ask, "Why?" but as Tim Keller says, "It can't be that he doesn't love us." I quote Aeschylus often but I've come to find comfort in these words that assuage my feelings of anger and injustice when I look upon my own pain or the suffering of others, whether they be innocent or whether they be quilty. "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." Words are meaningful, presence is meaningful, and hope utmost is meaningful. "When power narrows the area of a man's heart," says Christofferson, "poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. Where power corrupts - poetry cleanses." There is a richness hidden in the human heart that points towards something greater and cleanses him of the suffering and evil. The famous question, "Is everything sad going to come untrue?" The answer is yes and for as much as one suffers, the equalizing glory of all things made new will be exponentially greater in the new creation. I believe this begins with the power of words that only a heart can begin to sense. I've seen it in children most often but the same holds true no matter the heart's age.
As I look back there are wounds that time cannot mend. My heart has deep hurts but that story is mine to share...my suffering indeed is a blessing for others. If only I will look upon it as so. My wounds are very little. My cuts go only skin deep. Yet there are those out there who have wounds and scars that define them now. I feel that pain as much as I can. Truth in that feeling is harsh and it wounds us all. No man is an island. And where one man suffers, the ripples of that suffering will in time wound us all. However, just as one man suffering brings forth a common thread, so one man's suffering can over turn the suffering that is due for all time. For he is meant to suffer all that we are meant to suffer. He will know infinitely more suffering than our eternal suffering could even hint at. For indeed, even as a child thinks his suffering is the worst of all time, he learns in time that his suffering was very little. So we are, in the course of our lives, only children - by the awful Grace of God we shall never know more than a child suffers should we choose to let another take our place.
Where does that leave us...I'm haunted by the words in this video. I realize that suffering can breed more suffering. I realize that suffering can twist a heart into a deformed state of anger, and violence, and hatred. I realize that some wounds will forever make their mark. Yet, I also realize that amidst all this pain is a hope. That a lightness shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it. When I first heard these words about wounds that go too deep I fell into despair. However, I realized the glory as time passed. These wounds do take hold, they mark us. The marking though is up for us to decide. We all must decide how we shall be marked, which banner we will have over us, how we will live our lives. And so, as I am marked by wounds that go so deep and have taken hold...wounds that show me children beaten and enslaved, cold blood violence, even the smallest pain of losing a loved one who shares not the same love for me, I am reminded that I am marked. These wounds will forever shape my heart and my destiny. They for all time become my story. That story is one in which I choose how I am shaped - towards anger and a deformed soul or towards brokeness and a hope. A hope that my wounds can touch others. That my wounds will remind me of a hope in which the question, "Is everything sad going to come untrue?" is yes. Wounds that will go so deep that I will forever love others and the one who took suffering so that my suffering will be made good and will in time be but a dim light in the ever passing glory that is to come in the time without end. Perhaps it is indeed a fool's hope. It is my hope. It is your hope. It is our hope. It is our choice.
"They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory." -C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
1 Comments:
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