Going the other Way - November 12
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm [83] or 23, 27; PM Psalm 85, 86; Joel 2:21-27; James 1:1-15; Luke 15:1-2,11-32
In our first year of seminary, the campus experienced a baby boom. Some joked that the snowstorm the spring before, aptly named Snowmageddon, where students were stuck on campus or their apartments for a week, was to blame. There was no escaping the talk of babies and the planning, dreaming, and joy that was to come. In our small community, it felt like everyone was pregnant. Even one of the faculty members was about to be a new dad.
One of the many lessons that I had to learn that Fall included the reality that joy in some people’s life can bring up stories of pain in others. The Rt. Rev. Mark Dyer and his wife, Dr. Amy Dyer, invited Anne and I and a few other couples to an evening where we could pray and share in a safe place. We had all experienced devastating loss that Fall and it was especially tender to process the grief in a community where so many were so hopeful about life and parenthood and we all had wanted nothing more than to share that same hope in our own lives. Mark and Amy shared their own stories of loss, grief, and hope that night, and it was the first moment where I began to find healing and a new sense of hope.
At the time, Mark was in his eighties and he could still real off all the painful words friends had tried to use to comfort him some forty or fifty years earlier. “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” Or “Heaven gained another angel today.” Some friends even told him he was a sinner and this is how God was punishing him. I guess they were trying to be helpful, but they wouldn’t have been my friends after a comment like that. That evening, he reminded all of us that God is not manipulative, yet is always present in our grief and pain. On that dark fall day, I felt God working through Mark and Amy, a presence that was real and tangible. They were able to use their own pain (albeit years later) to help Anne and I begin to heal.
I struggle with these words from James today. James is writing followers of Jesus who are facing hardship with the encouragement that “whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). James would be considered more than a little insensitive today.
But if we take the long view, if we are to read the words of James years after our struggles and trials, then the words begin to take a different light. Human life and hardship can lead us down two separate paths. We can so easily become bitter, jaded, hopeless, or angry. This path is easy and immediate.
Or we can go another way. Our trials, our pain, and our journey can lead us to become more empathetic, compassionate, and able to use our trials as a way to connect with others in their pain. James is encouraging us down the hopeful path. God is always present. Just as God was working through Mark and Amy, God can work through each of us too, through our own trials and tribulations. In the words of James, may we be emboldened to let “endurance have its full effect.” And may we make Christ known to a world desperately in need of Good News.
John+
Questions for Self-Reflection: How have other people who have experienced pain and suffering been helpful in your own healing and woundedness?
Daily Challenge: Spend time today reflecting on how hardship has shaped you to be who you are today. If you can, try to give thanks to God for how the trials and tribulations have shaped you.