pain

I know that hardly anything is written, anywhere, anytime, without some mention or hint of pain. It is the Great Similitude between all humankind. And i have physical pain in my gums from the newfangled torture method commonly known as orthodontics (today they clamped some more ironworks across the front and then rubber-banded my jaws together so that i can only hum and drink through a straw for 21 hours a day--only 7 more weeks, praise the LORD). But that pain is not my subject; it is just what reminded me that i have a nebulous happening in my brain meaning "blog about this." That came into being while i was in France, reading C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain (which i highly recommend).

My very dear friend just came home from China, and i have a feeling we're going to cry together more than we laugh together, at least for a little while. She is one of those precious souls that is motivated by pain for others a good portion of the time, and another good part by compassion. (How does one obey "Bear one another's burdens" without taking them on like the weight of the world?)

The book is a hard read, intellectually at times, but also because Lewis tells the truth. He's honest. And it doesn't sound pretty to say that "The creature's illusion of self-sufficiency must, for the creature's sake, be shattered; and by trouble or fear of trouble on earth... God shatters it 'unmindful of His glory's diminution'... And this illusion of self-sufficiency may be at its strongest in some very honest, kindly, and temperate people, and on such people, therefore, misfortune must fall." This only scratches the surface of his point, but it is so true. There is pain in the fallen world because of the bare fact that we were not created to be independent, but to wholly live through surrender to the Creator in His perfection; honest, humble, Like Christ. His suffering was as great as his compassion--which was all-consuming. In worldly terms, it's grossly unjust. But so was the Cross. And so it goes.

I used to never cry--or only very rarely. Maybe i was too proud or hard or self-sufficient. Then i went away for five months, in the middle of which this blog was born. Somewhere during that time, something happened, and now i cry lots more easily, for which i'm so grateful. It's such a wonderful, honestly human thing: it says, "i'm overwhelmed and totally dependent."

So, as my mouth won't be open very much, i hope my ears and heart and tears will be all the more.