Tonight, I did what mothers do. I rocked my sick boy, Jack, to sleep. As I always do in these times, I wondered how many times in the four years of institutional living he was sick, and no one was there to comfort him? No one was there to make the calming shhhh-ing noise that all mothers instinctively make when their babies are in need of consoling. No one was there to pat his back, to soothe him with the rhythmic back and force rocking of the innate motion given to mothers, to sit with him, cheek to cheek, or to whisper a prayer over him for peace, healing, and a God-filled future. The thoughts made me sad, but I'm learning to be okay with that.
When we reach into the unknown, we can never return to ignorance. Abstract ideas are no longer just that---ideas. Our presupposed thoughts and emotions on a subject disappear under the concrete realness of an experience. I'm learning that it is the experience that grows the God character within me. I can't ignore the plight of the orphan or the pain of a parent's grief. These are my experiences. There's no guess work involved in the reality of these experiences. There's no room for a buffer or chosen indifference. It's an impossibility for me to close my eyes to these overwhelmingly difficult circumstances. The sadness comes---along with compassion, love, empathy, and the desire to avoid idleness in the Kingdom. The experience becomes fuel for a purposeful life driven by the power of Christ within me.
Why, then, has it been decided that pain should be avoided--that we somehow have the right to a perfectly blissful existence? Whether chosen sadness or God-ordained unexpected sadness, why do we do all that is within us to squash it down inside of ourselves, numb it, run from it? Children are ripped from their mother's womb all for the sake of self-preservation--we've avoided the pain. We vilify the one who did the ripping--His people have avoided the pain. We turn a blind eye to the sick, the mentally-ill, the orphan, the widow, the poor, the spiritually impoverished---we've avoided the pain. In avoiding the pain, we've avoided the blessing. We have destroyed our ability to grow in knowledge---to turn the abstract into the concrete. Thus, we have destroyed our ability to become as our Father. With that, we have destroyed ourselves.
May we learn to embrace pain just as we embrace joy. God help us that we are ungrateful for the darkness that shadows our lives! May we be content in the knowledge that we are no longer ignorant to the suffering of others, and that just as our Father controls the intricate details of the universe, every emotion was created by Him and is under His foot. Just as every piece of His handy work calls out His name, so the pain that weaves itself into the masterpiece of our lives will point back to the Master Designer.
