This Blessed Life

It takes me forever to pick a sympathy card. They have far too many words. Line after line of "comfort" and truth that I can't imagine new grief wants to hear. The pain is too fresh.

Which is why I think God has chosen now--when I'm NOT in the midst of a crisis--to remind me of these critical and comforting truths: God is in control (Job 38-41), He is good (1 John 4:7-21, 1 Cor 13:3-7), and He uses everything for good (Rom 8:28, Eph 1:11).

Our Sunday school discussed "the problem of pain" a couple weeks ago while I was reading through Romans, a letter addressing that very subject. But then just in the last 24 hours, I've read...

A breathtaking chapter (5) in Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts in which she shows how God has taught her to count all moments as blessings from God - not just the ones that feel like gifts:

I have hacked my life up into grace moments and curse moments...cut myself off from the embracing love of a God who 'does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow' (Lam 3:33), but labors to birth grief into greater grace...That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart--and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty. Can I believe the gospel, that God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of my life into a song of His Son?
What in the world, in all this world, is grace?
I can say it certain now: All is grace.
God is always good and I am always loved.
[I can] take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness. I have glimpsed it: The hard discipline to lean into the ugly and whisper thanks to transfigure it into beauty.

(I couldn't find a quote that does her point justice, so I highly recommend the book.)

Then I read Martha Beck in O Magazine:

It's natural to dislike saying goodbye to things we care about. Who wouldn't want to preserve the beauty, the vibrancy, the fun of things they've loved? Of course, these are the very qualities we destroy by refusing to let go...Denying an organic end point is like trying to animate a corpse. The deserts of our lives can be unlivable. But if we stay awhile, something unexpectedly comforting happens. "Every happiness," writes Rilke, "is the child of a separation it did not think it could survive." Conversely, any sorrow can be the parent of a joy we've never imagined.

And then today, I read Jesus' words in The Gospel of John. His close friend Lazarus has died, and Jesus tells Lazarus' sister:

"You don't have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?" (Jn 11:25-26, The Message)

It's one of many times Jesus describes that belief allows us to find life through death. That when we see through His perspective, we see how pain leads to greater joy (Matt 16:24, Phil 1:27, Col 1:24, Jn 12:24-28). That He uses the most perplexing and disturbing events to create the most beauty (i.e. the cross). I love that John also includes the doubters' questions:

"Master, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died."(Jn 11:32)

"If He loved him so much, why didn't He do something to keep him from dying?" (Jn 11:37)

And Christ's response: He wept. He got angry at their suffering. And then "Jesus looked her in the eye. 'Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?'" (Jn 11:40)

Jesus reminded them through word and deed that while He sympathized with their pain, they did not know the whole story, did not know His full power - yet. But through death (figurative and literal) and pain, they would get to see greater life, greater joy. And not just at the end. Starting now.

Looking around me, I have to remember that I don't know the whole story. Of my life. Of the world. In fact, the repetition of this lesson in my life right now makes me a little nervous about what's around the corner. But more importantly, it reminds me that I'm not a good judge of what is good. That I need to trust the all-good, all-knowing God. And that this life is not about ease and comfort but about the adventure of knowing and growing to be more like Christ. And that is definitely a good thing.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13)

For further reading:
The Gospel of John
Paul's Letter to the Romans