There's no good story without a few tears in it, at least this side of reality. Have you ever tried reading one of those insipid children's books that tries to teach numbers or manners or something but the plot and characters are dull enough to make the paint on your wall look interesting? And yes, there are some very good books with very few words out there, it is possible to tell a good story in five sentences or less. They are tedious and uninteresting because they are unrealistic, there is nothing of emotion or feeling in them; they are dull for the same reason math books are dull: they were only meant to convey facts, not tell a story, yet telling a story is one of the oldest and best ways of teaching something, but some of our more modern elites in the education world have forgotten this and think only the facts matter.
I often wonder at the modern pursuit of the so-called 'good life,' basically one as free of discomfort and as full of pleasure as possible. No wonder I find suburbia as surreal as one of those 'informative' children's books. We all live 'happily' in our beige houses with our regulation lawns and red SUVs, keeping our souls dulled into 'blissful' insensibility by an unending schedule of soccer games, dance lessons, overtime, and expensive family vacations to cheesy rodent themed amusement parks. There are no problems in the world, save what we see on TV, but those don't affect us, they are far away, and will never affect us. I'll live in my artificial, anesthetized bubble of reality and watch the years tick away. You can pretend pain doesn't exist, but that doesn't make it go away. We try to create our own little utopias, forgetting that we live in a broken paradise where such things cannot be. One day, sorrow will come knocking; it is not an if but a when. But are we ready to open the door? Will your whole fake bubble implode, your so-called life evaporate, or will you struggle and cry, but come out the stronger for it?
Besides for the oldest among us, we have never had our Great Depression or World Wars, all our crises have been rather mild by comparison; the majority of us in the West don't have to wonder where our next meal will come from, to us, our iPhone breaking is the worst calamity we can currently imagine
enduring. I like the way C.S. Lewis put it: "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." No other needle will pop the fake and protective balloon we have carefully wrapped about ourselves and our sensibilities. I am not saying that all pain and suffering in the world is for just that reason, rather we live in a broken and ruined world, one where sin and strife and suffering are the rule rather than the exception, while we try to minimize it, none can avoid it indefinitely, but sometimes, God will use that suffering for His glory and our good, if we will take the hint, that is.
I often wonder at my childhood, I grew up thinking I was normal: divorced parents, an emotionally abusive father and emotionally distant mother, bullied at day care and public school, normal for a kid growing up in the 90's right? Then I got married and had a family of my own, I'm still discovering the depth of the hurt and pain, 20 years later I'm still crying myself to sleep, because it isn't 'normal,' it may be culturally normal, but it wasn't how it was meant to be. Comparing my own family dynamics to those of my family of origin, I know now what family is supposed to mean and the latter was the antithesis. Why was I allowed to suffer so much sorrow for so long? Why must I still bear the scars and nurse unhealed wounds? If God loves me, why couldn't I have been happy?
There are greater goods than happiness, higher ideals than pleasure. But for my sorrow and loneliness, my social ostracization, I might never have known Him. 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' In finding Him, I have found my Joy and Hope and Peace, something the world could never give, and when it did, it was a fickle and vapid thing, fleeting and vain, but His hope shall outlast the stars. I did not enjoy the pain, I would not willingly endure it again, but greater Joy has come of it. An infant and mother don't enjoy the birth process, but it would be tragic were they to forgo it for fear of discomfort and greater joy certainly comes of it.
We can either lean into sorrow, take its hand and bear with it until it has passed, learning from it what we must, allowing Someone else to ease our burden, to share our pain, else we can try hiding from it, deny it exists, or be crushed beneath it or shake our fists at the heavens and decry that this is proof that there is no God or that He does not care. He is not the God of personal comfort, that is a small and fickle god indeed, rather He went to the cross to bear the sins and sorrows of a world that denied Him, betrayed Him, insulted Him. 'He has borne our sorrows and carried our griefs,' when He need not have known anything but Glory and Joy forever. Now there is a rock we can stand upon or shelter behind, whatever the storm without.
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