The most important lesson I’ve learned so far is that life has a way of bringing you the best and the worst of its bountiful stores. I’ve lived the good life, been happy with the circumstances, been able to take a proud inventory of life and say “I am satisfied.” But then, I turned 3…and my sister came along…and I had to start sharing my toys, the lavish affection of my family and more importantly…she ruined Christmas by being born just a few days before. For an only child who had been the only grandchild on one side and the only boy on the other side…I was used to getting things I wanted, when I wanted to get them. But then of course…life changed. It wasn’t until later that I truly began to enjoy my sister…I think it was when I found out that if I jumped on the bed while she was napping, she bounced! That was fun! I finally realized how much fun she could be! Even though my mother didn’t find it as amusing as I had, she knew I finally accepted my little sister in my life. It was when I was away at college and she at home with mom, still in high school, that I truly accepted her, because I almost lost her. Shortly after Thanksgiving break, my sister became deathly ill, having developed an edema in the brain and became paralyzed and near death. The doctors reported she had a 50/50 shot at making it…and if she did, she would have years of therapy and surgeries trying to regain her former motor functions and abilities. After a couple months in the hospital and six months in rehab and many surgeries later, she’s had a long road, but one paved with both pain and promise, both heartache and hope. In the 12 years since she became ill, my little sister has experienced the gamut of what life can give you. From a not so healthy relationship with her boyfriend to the beautiful births of two amazingly talented girls with dreams of becoming cheerleaders and presidents and a rough and tumble boy with a future as a linebacker, life has shown her that fickle is the fate of all who dare to live and breathe.

We have all experienced some pain in our lives…it is the fickle fate of all humanity. It is precisely our propensity to experience pain that makes our Gospel story so appealing. In the frankest of terms, the immutable Creator of all that is, the one who’s canopy is light and who is light itself, the one we call transcendent and beyond our realm of perception, has become like the creature…and felt the pain of life, the searing pain of loss, the marring pain of being wounded by a friend and the psychological and physical pain of a violent and lonesome death. When approached in these terms, one would find it difficult to imagine why God would choose to accept the fickle fate of humanity as a means to provide us a way to experience life anew, to provide us with fresh new eyes to see the world and to offer to us a pathway to a new and blessed hope. But why pain? Why would God choose this most demeaning and difficult part of human life as God’s vehicle of hope. Couldn’t God just cause pain to cease? Couldn’t God just make worry, anxiety and the psychological and physical attributes of pain go away and leave us with nothing but joy and happiness? The fact is, I have no way of knowing and I am rather disappointed that God chose other means to impart grace and mercy to our broken world. I have however, come to think more maturely about pain than I did when I was a three year old. Now, after experiencing the many different types and causes of pain that life has brought my way, I tend to reflect on my circumstances and instead of looking for a way out of the pain, I seek to hear God’s voice in it. C.S Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." Pain, by definition, has to hurt. Psychologically or physically, pain causes some level of discomfort and can even knock us off our feet when we just got back up from the last blow. But I’ve learned over the years that there are volumes of truth I can glean from the pain I’ve experienced. My attitude toward pain, my reactions and responses to the hardest times of my life speak loudly about how I really feel and think about life. In addiction and recovery, we teach addicts about the 12 Steps to Recovery. Of these 12 Steps, there are a few that speak to the way we handle life when it is difficult to maintain. The third step says we: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”. When we honestly sit down with ourselves, I mean honestly look at the grit and grime that makes up the whole of who we are, are we able to point to the things that have become barriers to healthy living? Are we able to say out loud the things that cause us pain? Are we able to shed light on the darkest recesses of our souls and bring our rebellious hearts back to path of hopeful living? C. S. Lewis also wrote in The Problem of Pain that "[Pain] removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul." Pain is God’s language of restoration. That’s hard truth to accept. None of us want to accept that God is present in the pain of life…it offends our sensibilities and causes great psychological distress to those of us who have billed God as a God of peace, mercy and grace…a God who brings us hope and defends the work of good and honest people, a God who blesses those who work for justice and the end of suffering. And the stark reality is that both of these positions are true of God.

God is present in our pain. God speaks to us through pain, encourages us through the fire and brings us through the flame and leaves us different, changed. I do not believe God causes pain, nor do I believe that God will always fully protect us from that fickle fate of the human experience. But it is clear to me, that the pain I’ve experienced has brought me to a place of searching and fearless moral inventory, a place where I can sit and truly see the details of my own life I’d prefer to hide away from the healing light. As our text pointed out, pain is the author of hope. And it is a new, fresh and infinite hope that is born from the confidence of the endurance of finite pain. It is the natural evolution of our existence…we experience pain, we find hope. And that hope does not disappoint us, because it is more than a wishful whim or fancy, but a truth forged by fire, a truth that is shouted out to us from the flames of life and is the very voice of God saying to us “you are loved.”

Amen!