The Problem of Pain

The problem of pain, C.S. Lewis, observed is it exposes the cracks we'd rather ignore.
It awakens our inner atheist who wonders if God exists.
It awakens our inner agnostic who wonders if God cares.
It awakens the doubts and the tears and all the things we think are not part of faith.

But struggling with God is one of the widest ways to encounter the divine...
To be sure it is fraught with potholes, bumps, twists and turns, we'd rather avoid.
It is filled with ups and downs that causes our hearts, heads, souls, and lives to feel dizzy.

But Israel means to strive...struggle with God.
Jacob wrestled;
The People of God wandered for forty years;
Years later, they were carted off to live in exile lamenting, "How do you sing to God in a foreign land?"
And the soil that bares that name still longs for peace.

Perhaps faith is not the absence of conflict, but what helps me breathe through the pain.
Perhaps faith is not a guarantee, but a promise...and there is difference.
Perhaps faith is not certainty, but mystery that continually invites us deeper.

In the face of pain, I remember one of the great lines from poet Leonard Cohen,
Of course there is a crack in everything...that is how the light gets in.

And while that light might not solve everything.
While that light might barely keep the darkness at bay.
It does help us see, if only a few feet.

And for the One who is as close as our next breath,
That is enough for us to maybe sense that pain is not the only truth there is in that moment;
For God is there too.

Blessings ~