Joy in the Pain

 My neighbor’s mother lost her husband, his dad, 17 years ago.  She seems to miss him today as much as she did when it happened.  Unfortunately, his mother’s health has declined now to where she is in constant pain and it has been this way for many years.  Yet she is always able to smile, to have conversation, and try to be somewhat active.  In fact, she has maintained a daily devotion for over 20 years and sends it out to many people. My neighbor said this of her, “She has been able to find and maintain joy in the Lord while not being always happy from Dad’s death and her physical pain.”

This is an incredible accomplishment.  In fact, I would put it very near to the tippy top of accomplishments in life. 

I don’t meet enough people who have found this.  Most people descend into a form of personal destruction.  Abusing alcohol seems to be a method for a lot of people I know who are in pain, whether it is emotional or physical.  One person who also lost her husband descended through substance abuse from playing tennis to barely able to walk.  Another has a liver that is almost gone; one bad infection and he will probably die.  Yet another mixes too much alcohol with anxiety and sleeping pills almost every night.  These are just a few examples, I know many more.  All of these people were active social productive members of society.  The suffering that happens in life is too much for them for the time-being.

Being able to find the personal touch of God daily, to confirm your knowledge of His presence hourly, to dwell every minute confidently aware of Him, is a wisdom that few can obtain.  It is other worldly.  Yet it should be the goal for everyone. 

Paul wrote in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  This can certainly be applied to our will for our life versus God’s will, but it can also be applied to our suffering.  We let our suffering die in its control of us just as the Lord suffered and was crucified.  I shall let my suffering go and seek to dwell always with God. 

C.S. Lewis told us that we have this desire to be happy because we were made for another world, a better world, and we want to get back there.  We crave depth and meaning and this world doesn’t satisfy that, but adds suffering as a bonus.  When Jesus was transfigured, he was met with two people who had been dead for a very long time.  They had to have been in heaven.  So, Jesus was in this world and heaven at the same time.  This means that we are able to experience heaven even now because heaven is being in the presence of God.  Our desire for more is met in our moments of the personal experience of dwelling with God, Jesus, His Spirit.

Desiring to dwell with God with our life as much as we can do it leads us to that place where we can be joyful in His presence even in the midst of this world’s suffering.  This should be our goal.