I'd like to believe that I use to have quite a high threshold for pain and suffering. I would hold out and refuse medication for as long as I could if I had a migraine headache, fever, or sore throat. It was my way of proving that I could overcome suffering and pain and limit it to a battle of the will. The same sentiment was applied when I was faced with pain that dealt with feelings and emotions of the heart. In fact, I would secretly find joy in the fact that I could count the number I cried in college on one hand or how I was the kleenex-passer in movies that everyone else was sobbing in.
As I've gotten older, that mysterious threshold somehow disappeared. I pop every type of medication I can when I start feeling achey and find myself getting misty-eyed when something stirs my heart.
I cannot explain why suffering happens. In fact, it's has been the greatest mystery to me recently. I find myself despising with a passion when I hear others or the voice inside my head say it's "the will of God". For if God is for us....why is he still against us? (yes, I'm sure there's some long textbook theological answer someone can give me...but I'm not really asking)
Nouwen writes, "Therefore, instead of declaring anything and everything to be the will of God, we must be willing to ask ourselves where in the midst of our pains and sufferings we can discern the moving presence of God....We are poor listeners because we are afraid that there is something other than the love of God...We doubt what presents itself to us as love and are always on guard, prepared for disappointments."
I think that hit me between the eyes. That means we cannot "experience love without jealousy, resentment, revenge, or even hatred", which also means we will not experience suffering without these feelings too. When I experience vertigo, GERD, stiff lower back pain, heartache (boy, I sound like I'm 107 years old!), my initial feelings of resentment surface. I forget that in the midst of the physical or emotional suffering, I still remain in God's loving presence.
For me, that's the harder place to be. Yes, I'd rather monku (japanese slang for complain) so loud about the cards I've been dealt and allow my heart and mind to be filled with noise.
Yet, God calls me to commit to listening and to soak in His love without fear. It's a scary thing.
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1 comment:
Amen sistah!
Yes, soaking in God's love--without fear--is indeed a scary thing. I think that reminds me how frail I am, that I can easily forget that God's love, his perfect love, transcends even the greatest of love that we can experience between one another as followers of Jesus.
And it's funny how that imperfect love, how we love each other as fellow humans, is a vehicle God chooses to display His perfect love. Our love tinged with "...jealousy, resentment, revenge, or even hatred..." is a channel for God to employ His perfect love.
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