It is easy to be grateful for the good things that come to us. But can we be like Job, who says in the midst of his losses:
“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”
Of course the answer is no.
When life kicks us while we are down, we feel humiliated, helpless, insignificant. Why should we feel gratitude for pain?
I spend a great deal of my waking time trying to avoid pain, like an amoeba instinctively repelled from an invading organism.
This past year I went through a mental inventory of all the people I know. A great number of them are suffering some sort of physical or mental pain. Is it all just bad luck and good luck?
It takes a lot of living before we begin to understand the significant role of pain in our spiritual and emotional growth. Perhaps women, who must bear children in pain, understand it more fully and earlier than men, who often feign indifference to anything that suggests vulnerability.
The ancient Greeks believed that we brought pain upon ourselves through our pride and arrogance, and that after the pain comes renewal: “God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”
I remember very few lines from sermons, but I have never forgotten one I heard some 30 years ago.
The speaker said that God always answers our prayers, but always answers them the same way: with the Holy Spirit.
When I was making that mental inventory of my friends and neighbors, I was surprised to realize that despite their pain, no one has been abandoned. Every one of them has what he or she needs to grow, to renew, to resurrect.
We want what we want. But life is not about us. We are a part of something bigger, call it what you will. If we wish to be a part of this life force, we must, like Job, be willing to accommodate as much of it as we can, the good and the bad.
Insha’Allah. ~ Blessed be the name of the lord.
Just a thought…
Joe Nagy