A Glimmer of Light…

“We get to the beauty through the brutal. Not over or around or under but straight through. We do not ignore each other’s pain - we help carry it.”

Glennon Doyle

I used to think that the best way to manage pain was to super-spiritualize it. Be hopeful! Be positive! Remind myself of all those sayings I have heard all my life about God and suffering. Then I studied the scriptures. The dissonance was shocking. It gave me the same feeling as an ice cream headache.

I read the laments - full on works of suffering, grief, mourning and loss. The writer was going THROUGH pain. He (I assume) even had the temerity to question God about his suffering - much like Job. What’s going on here, I thought? The few “friends'' who tried to correct Job’s theology ultimately received the harshest critique from God - not Job!

I’ve got a lot of unlearning to do. I’ve worn deep ruts around tough topics, suffering, and grief. I’ve tried to tippy toe around them and not get caught in their sticky web. I’ve tried to comfort the comfortless. Why? Was I simply trying to relieve my own anxiety? Was I parroting others, assuming they must be right about the nature of loss?

Straight through. Like the psalmists; on we march. God with us. That truth is amazing enough right there. We need no fancy stories or justifications or blaming to deal with suffering.

God with us.

God with us.

God with us.

There it is; there is the glimmer of light in darkness.