“Where does the sun set again?”
“Well, it doesn’t actually set…” I tried to explain, and did it poorly. He didn’t answer, but I wondered if the six-year-old brain was cogitating that grandest of all wonders: that the truth is bigger than we understand.
I remember the slow-dawning realization that our world is not the center of the universe, that we are actually spinning around in space. I remember lying in the yard, looking up at the clouds in the deep blue center, dizzy with the thought of hanging in space. I dug my fingers into the grass, in case gravity wasn’t enough to keep me here. Wonder intertwined with fear.
Fear keeps slithering into my heart. I read from so many sources about God’s goodness in suffering, and I wonder what He knows is ahead, why I must be ready to embrace suffering. I brace myself, wondering if I will be strong enough, and wish he would just give it to me and get it over with, because this dread of suffering hurts too much. “Whatever you do, do quickly,” I tell God, with the self-centered inversion of sin.
I lose myself in “what-if,” forgetting what is. Or who is.
I know suffering can be used for God’s glory. I know we must participate in the suffering of Christ if we hope to attain to the resurrection from the dead. But do I really want Him to say, “Well done good and faithful servant?” Or would I settle for a “Well, you’re done; pretty good most of the time.” Getting through life without too much glory, but without too much pain. A tame God.
He’s not tame, though. He’s good.
But Love has pitched her mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.
(Yeats)
1 comment:
"I remember lying in the yard, looking up at the clouds in the deep blue center, dizzy with the thought of hanging in space. I dug my fingers into the grass, in case gravity wasn’t enough to keep me here."
This reminded me of Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl by N. D. Wilson. Which you should read if you haven't. :-)
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