Lately, there is a whole lot of pain going around.  In my own little universe, a friend has cancer, another friend had a stroke, my son continues to be autistic, my sister lost her job, my grand-nephew may have a serious health issue, and financial problems continue all around.  In reaction to immediate fears our government is making decisions that will affect generations to come.  Some of us are making the same types of decisions in our own lives, based on fear, that will have far-reaching consequences for us.

A friend asked me, “Do you think if we make a total mess of our lives God will figure it out for us?”

I pondered this question for a long time.

Some of our pain comes from our own bad choices.  Self-will, self-seeking, self-comfort.  No good comes out of serving our own comfort.
Some of our pain comes from honest mistakes.  We think we are doing the right thing, but it turns out to have an unforseen, painful result.  We are capable of “seeking God’s will” and still making mistakes.  This is being human.
And sometime things happen to us that we are totally blindsided by.  Sometimes we are struck by things that come out of the blue that lay us low.  This is the scariest kind of pain.  Pain we don’t “deserve”.  And yet it happens.

If you are reading this blog, my bet is that at some time in your life, you have had a personal encounter with the living God, the Great Mystery, Creator of All.  You probably have some belief in the Power and Majesty of the One Who Is.  And you have asked this One, “Why?”  Why do You do what You do?  Why do You permit what You permit?  I think, at its core, all our questions are really asking, “Do You love me?  Can I trust You?”

And the One Who Is answers, “I sent you Jesus.”

    Non-sequitur, Great One.  I asked You if You love me.

“I sent you Jesus.  I sent you ME.”

    But Jesus suffered.

“And so will you.”

I got a meditation in my email the other day that said not to spend too much time trying to figure out why we suffer–that Jesus spent very little time explaining suffering.  When Jesus encountered suffering He blazed a way through it.  Some things he fixed.  Some things he let be.

That’s when it gets scary.  Evidently some things I am supposed to bear.  Let be.                                               When I think of surrendering to some of the pain in my life I feel a thrill of fear go through my body.  Adrenaline is released and my brain goes numb.  I forget to breathe.

I’ll bet Jesus felt like that in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Yet Jesus did not run from it.  Jesus went through it.  And out of what Jesus went through has come my faith and my salvation.  What if, instead, Jesus had run?

Evidently God only permits what God can use.

So when we suffer, if there is an obvious way out, take it.  (Duh.)

If there is no obvious way out, we are to bear it, at least for the present moment.  (Otherwise, God would provide a way out.)  (Duh, again.)

So, when bearing this present suffering that God is permitting, I begin each day asking for God’s direction.  I go through the day doing the Next Right Thing.  I try to trust the mystery.  And I watch what happens.