Untold Joy

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to pain lately.  About all the ways this life brings pain and how it is hard, but so necessary.  I have experienced pain in lots of ways during this season of life.

I’ve lost sweet women back into the throes of addiction and prostitution.  I’ve lost a grandma that I wish I knew better.  I’ve struggled with facing some hard issues in my marriage.  I’ve started going to counseling to deal with some of my own personal pain.  Pain is all around, for everyone.  It’s part of life.

It strikes me as I write this that there are people dealing with these issues everywhere, but you might not ever know it.  We tend to focus on the happy things.  Pain is an uncomfortable, maybe even taboo topic.  We don’t sit with it very well.  (Speaking for myself here.)

BUT I’m realizing how important it is to pay attention to the pain.  To sit with it.  Invite God to sit in it with you.  To really feel it.  This is where we find real healing.  When we pay attention to the things that cause us pain, we notice what we care about.  We notice where we need work.  Sometimes that work looks like feeling our grief, sometimes it looks like forgiveness.  Sometimes it looks like being honest with ourselves.

When we let God into it, He can show us the way out.  I have been re-reading The Pilgrimage of a Soul by Phileena Heuertz and this phrase has stayed with me, “The pain and trial we experienced carved out space in us for untold joy.”  Man, that gives me hope.  That He will use all this pain for joy.  He can use this mess for His glory and our good.

On this Good Friday, let us remember that.  As his friends sealed up the tomb, as Peter heard the third crow, as Mary wept, there was pain.  But they didn’t know about the untold joy ahead.  When all was dark, God was still making a way.  All that heartache was making space for what was coming – new life and new hope.

And please don’t read what I’m not saying – life is good for me.  This season has had pain, sure, but it has also brought so much healing and so much connection for me.  Counseling is a GIFT to me.  My husband is a gift to me.  This work is a gift to me.  But good things aren’t always easy and perfect.  There is pain.  We wouldn’t know joy without it.  So as I work through the pain and the trials, I am expectant that He will bring untold joy.