Gridblog: Living in Death’s Light

Yeah, I’m late.  But since Steve wrote about Living in Light of Eternity, I figured a few days here or there makes precious little difference.

A few weeks back, my mind was on suffering.  I wasn’t really in the midst of any unusual struggles or pain; I just found myself considering the hurtful parts of life.  There’s no shortage of them: Disappointment with self or others or circumstances shows itself in a million ways.  Sometimes, “disappointment” is way too weak of a description.  Life can dish out some blatantly brutal realities that it would seem no person should ever have to go through.

The feeling that overwhelmed me was, “This can’t be for nothing.  There must be something crucial about our sufferings.”

I realize that that sounds vague, maybe nothing more than wishful.  But the feeling was intense, and it wouldn’t leave me alone… and it wouldn’t come into clearer focus.  The more I lived with it, the more I decided that what I was really getting at was the idea that our sufferings must count for something; they can’t simply be pain for the sense of pain.  Beneath, there must lie something more substantial.  I felt as though my holding to a worldview that involves a God at its centre demanded that at least this much make sense.

Now what I say next is not an attempt to answer unanswerable questions.  I am not digging around in very real and very hard life, hoping to find some catchy God-slogan.  Not even close.

We received news, along with many of you, that our friends (John & Jenn) had lost their baby boy.

And we tried to share in the shock.

And we tried to share in the tears.

Circumstances allowed us to attend the graveside service of Gordon Hector Wallace, and we were grateful.  As we stood in the frigid cemetary together, through the visiting afterwards, and over the next handful of days, this train (right or wrong) dominated my thoughts…

Our sufferings do matter.  And how God’s people live in the shadow of death and every other terrible thing is highly important.  A visit with a friend after the graveside service involved a tearful imagining that she and her husband might not survive if they had to walk John & Jenn’s road.  She simply wasn’t sure if they would pull through together.  Maybe she’s right.  Maybe not.  It’s immaterial.

But our sufferings are not; not to God and not to His establishing His reign on earth.

In one sense, there is no couple that deserved a healthy baby more than John & Jenn did.  God is highly pleased with the lives of these two children of His; I have no doubt.

In another sense, there are likely few couples with sufficient depth and grace to walk this road in a way that is truly beautiful and God-glorifying.  And in that sense, the segments of our roads that are walked hand-in-hand with death are of the utmost importance.  This is where much of the world walks.  Jesus Christ walked such roads in a way that beauty flowed and life was never far behind.  In fact, his fashion of living through the dark times is highly more impacting than his fashion of living through the heights.  That’s no knock on him; it’s just the nature of life.  The heavy moments hit harder, and our responses to such times are weightier expressions of who we are and what we hold to than the celebrations we hold on the mountain tops.

And it’s confirmation that there is more power and potential in our sufferings than our hurt usually allows us to see.   And that is a reality that we Resurrection-people are to live out.

And that is a reality that can only be lived out in the light of loss, injustice, fear, tragedy, confusion,… or death.

Living Forgiven

Well, I’m a day late.  My saving grace is that our topic is… well, you kind of HAVE to let it slide now, don’t you?

This IS a great topic.  I’m tipping my hat to you, Chelsey.  Really, I am.  Right now.

As I sit to type, I think I’ve only got one thought to share…

Forgiveness is like a fantasy coming true.  It’s every person’s dream becoming real.  For who hasn’t wished to be in the “Butterfly Effect” at one time or another?  Who hasn’t felt the need to go back and right a wrong?  To change a course?

Everyday carries dozens of instances of “I’d do THAT another away if I could”.

But we can’t.

A simple example:  I’ve often visited with someone who felt like he/she couldn’t effectively voice their thoughts.  My suggestion: “You just fire away.  See how I respond, and if you didn’t nail it, we’ll push ‘delete’ and go at it again.”

Wouldn’t you love it if forgiveness could work that cleanly–just take you back before the blunder?  But that’s what it DOES, isn’t it?  Isn’t that the point–to get a ‘do-over’?

No.  Not really.

The beauty of forgiveness is that it does MORE than that.

It doesn’t merely take us back to life before our fall, back to that un-screwed-up state.  Forgiveness is so powerful that it actually takes us to a NEW realm, one beyond what we had before we blew it.  By travelling through the failure and hurt, by being forced into humble and open confession of the wrong, by seeking restoration, and having another place their forgiveness upon us, we actually come out somewhere we’d have never arrived at otherwise.

This isn’t an attempt to confuse things, to get a little “let’s go on sinning so that forgiveness may abound” thing going. This truth simply highlights the power of forgiveness for both seekers and offerers.

Forgiveness opens new doors and ignites new flames; it is proof that the Kingdom is real and among us–that purity is more powerful than sin, that death cannot defeat life, that condemnation truly is not the law of the land, and that even the blackest darkness cannot withstand even the simplest source of light.

And that IS good stuff!