To borrow from Lewis: I Have a Problem with Pain

I have a few unfinished posts started. Anecdotes about the craziness of life with seven kids. Things I want to remember, things that might make people laugh, things that might make someone feel less alone.  But today I can't seem to finish them or convince myself that any body would care to read them.

Instead I'll write about what is on my mind, even if no one ends up reading it, it may prove useful. 

Suffering. 

What a broad and mysterious word. What a daunting concept. We could spend our whole lives trying to figure it out, trying to beat it, trying to overcome it, learning to live with it.

Obviously this is a topic tackled by far greater minds than my own, theologians, philosophers, atheists and saints. Pain is part of the human condition. So why do we resist is so? Why do we feel surprised or unjustly burdened when it seeps in, or even overcomes us?  

Because God did not intend for us to ever be in pain. 

I think this is the most important lesson we will ever learn in life. God intended a paradise for us. A life without pain, and grief, and loss. He intended for us to live whole, in Eden, working for the greater glory of our loving Creator.  

We all know what happened. We all know we are fallen and in need of grace, in need of Christ and his redemption. But we forget sometimes that our desires, our expectations and our humanity were still designed for another world.  We were designed for Eden and Eden is gone. Now we prepare for Heaven, the new Eden, our real home.  God does eventually promise us a world without pain, without loss, and fear, and death. We can hope in that, we can live for that, but we cannot get there without walking through the pain. 

In his beautiful redemptive grace he gives us another chance to find Eden, but then he tells us we cannot get there without suffering, without picking up our cross and dying with Christ.

Sometimes the thing about suffering that bothers me the most is how imbalanced it can seem.  We are all called to suffer but for one person that could truly mean living on a tight budget, or letting their cleaning lady go after years of financial freedom and frivolity. It could mean staying home with two kids when your real desire is to work. Or it can mean watching your child die right in front of you. 

Suffering can be mocking in its relativity.  But we must be careful not to judge what may be cross-carrying material for one and every day life for another.   I am discovering that suffering is often defined by how helpless it makes you feel. You are at the mercy of this pain, whatever it may be, you cannot change it and so you must choose to learn from it.  

We often think that unless we open our arms to the suffering, and accept it like a saint (or how we imagine a saint would handle it) we are failing. But the truth is, part of the refining power of suffering is that our humanity kicks and screams the whole way, not because we are railing against God but because we have an innate understanding that this is not what we were created for and we are longing for the world we were made for; we are longing for heaven. 

We do however, have to eventually accept the suffering. We do not have to abandon ourselves to it. We must abandon ourselves to God and allow him to do what he wills with the suffering.  It doesn't matter how long or how much I have suffered, this is always the hardest part.  

I suffer from chronic and severe migraines. Not cancer, nothing fatal or novel worthy, just really terrible, debilitating headaches. I have had them since I was 14, so I am used to it, I guess.  But lately, I have taken issue with a whole other side of this cross. When it was just me, I hated the pain. I hated that it took me away from school and friends, and made it hard for me to be dependable at work. 

  Now I hate them because I see what it does to my family. I see their disappointed eyes when they realize I am going back to bed, or the way they turn off all the lights for me when I come out into the living room and the older ones start telling the younger ones to whisper. I hate that I miss baseball games, and school plays, and dinner and ice cream outings. I worry that its something that is causing a void, something they will have to deal with later, something they'll need therapy for.  And I sit, in a dark room, in excruciating pain and think of them. I watch my amazing husband scramble to keep the house going while I hide in the dark and quiet; I watch him lie to me and tell me he's not tired or stressed after tucking the seventh kid into bed and then trying to catch up on the work he has missed.  I can accept the pain, but it leaves quite a wake, and that is what I take issue with, that is what I bring to the cross with helpless tears. 

At the heart of all suffering is a sense of total helplessness. This is why over and over Christ calls us to himself in the midst of our suffering. "Come to me all that are weary and I will give you rest." Suffering is so much greater than the pain it causes. We are built for relationships, and we are one body in Christ, so when one part of the body is hurting, it effects the whole body.  This is what we have to bring to the cross over and over again. It's not fair. It stinks. I can't control it. 

Whether you are suffering through a fatal illness, or a difficult marriage, or the unjust pain of infertility, you feel helpless.  The sting of death effects us all and it is so easy to get lost in the reverberating pain. 

But there is hope. We truly can unite our sufferings with Christs, we can offer our suffering up for the suffering of others, for the souls in purgatory, for the souls of our children and loved ones. It's like currency. God waits for us to give it back to him, to open our hands and then lift them up to his bosom. God never intended for us to suffer, but now that we must he pleads with us not to do it alone. We shouldn't and we can't.   

I have to admit I don't always know what it looks like to "give it back." For me it is often just a word here and there, a silent offering up through my tears of frustration and anger and disappointment. My weak plea to make beauty out of ashes. I am often reminded that not only does he promise not to abandon us he promises to fill in the gaps, to make whole that which sin and death have broken.  He meets the needs of my kids when I can't.  He can be a husband to the woman whose husband has retreated into a world of pornography and lies, he can fill the void of the family with no child, or the child with no sibling. 

It won't be perfect. We won't be perfectly happy. But we can find joy. We can find peace, and hope and love. This side of heaven we will hurt, we will ache and we will kick and scream against the inevitable pain of life. But we were not made for this world, and when we meet our Savior face to face, when we lay down our cross at his wounded feet, we will find complete happiness and we will be ushered into the new Eden, all of our hopes realized, and all of this will be but a breath.