Lament Diluted...

Any given suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. When we wallow in suffering; time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain. The paralysing immobility of a life so lived allows every circumstance to be regulated after an unchangeable pattern, so that we eat, drink, lie down and pray according to the inflexible laws of an iron formula: this immobile quality that makes each dreadful day in the very minutest detail like its brother. This state of being seems to communicate itself to those external forces the very essence of whose existence is ceaseless change – and so we remain in our state of suffering.

Added to this - the biggest problem we humans have is coping with suffering. Pain, injury, disease and death are denials of life. Whatever we say to make it seem less painful it doesn't make it easier. It doesn't make sense. It just doesn't add up. Stand beside the coffin of a fifteen year-old girl who has died of cancer, or a child of three who has been killed in an accident and you will know how it feels. And the whole world of medicine and surgery is geared to combating the lessening of life that pain and suffering inflict.

Over the centuries, through ancient times, the problem of suffering baffled human minds and afflicted human hearts, destroying happiness and shattering people's confidence in a Higher Power. Broken hearts ached as they buried their dead and watched their dear ones suffer, all the time asking, "Why? Why? Why? Will it ever end?" And they packaged that hope of perfect health into the dreams of the golden age that they imagined God (or whatever they conceived Him to be) would one day bring to pass.

Many surgical and medical miracles later we still dream and hope that that ancient longing will come true. But of course human life is human life and this side of eternity it will always include a tragic element. But that is no reason why we shouldn't still pray, dream, work and hope. There are some realities that are part of God's final salvation. But that final salvation impinges on life here. God's future golden age reaches into this not-so-golden present age and bids us trust where we cannot understand and hope where we cannot see.

Acceptance and forgiveness are essential for a life lived with purpose – finding and having someone special to share and support us through the trials is indeed a divine blessing – at all cost don’t deny yourself this gift of fellowship. ~ SB

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” -Hebrews 11:1