Is God Cruel? Comfort, Agony and Peace
Here’s a link to an article in the “California Catholic Daily” on this subject. It’s titled “God is not nice. The truth hurts.” http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=c3078848-dba3-4770-b339-988ef4004819
One distinction: The author uses “Nice” to refer to the principle, which many people today have fallen into, that not hurting people’s feelings is the very most important thing. The problem is that this too often slips into withholding the truth because people might not like to hear it. He points out that the excessive desire to be “nice” can lead to unkindness. It may seem “nice” to withhold bad news about a terminal disease from someone. But it’s kind, he says, and I agree, to tell someone the truth. It may hurt someone to have their hopes dashed, but if these are false hopes, the sooner they are relieved of them the better.
I just learned today that a good friend’s father has a grave neurological disease; the kind which you can’t treat and which generally means an early death after a long deterioration of your quality of life. This is a good man and he’s still below retirement age. My friend has many obligations of her own and is not able to do what every fiber of her being calls for: Go and be with her father, helping him, supporting her mother, comforting him as best she can and being with him as much as she can.
This is a family of devout Catholics, and they all believe in the love of God and the redeeming nature of suffering. That does not mean it is not painful. Certainly the father would prefer to live a full natural lifespan without such deterioration of his quality of life. With every fiber of HIS being.
I know of other examples, but I’m sure my readers can supply more than enough of their own.
So what, exactly, is going on here? God is supposed to be good and all-powerful. As the ancient question goes, How could He do this? Or allow it? And how are we supposed to deal with it? If God is not going to stop this, why do we still suffer so much? Where is this peace and comfort they go on and on about?
Okay. I want to deal with those two words, “peace” and “comfort”; and another word: “Agony”.
Take, for instance, “peace.” At the Last Supper, Our Lord said: "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
What, “Do not let your heart be troubled”??? That’s confusing to us these days. And can lead, yes, to cruelty and the appearance thereof, including cruelty perpetrated wrongly in God’s name.
Okay; I will give another example.
Many years ago I attended a memorial service for a 15-year-old boy who died in a traffic accident. The minister was a Protestant, but God bless him, He was not “nice”.
He began his homily by telling us that his father died when he was eight. The family got a number of callers. He spoke of the pain inflicted by the “pious liars” who came by and told them not to feel bad, because God surely knew what was best, and therefore took his daddy away for a good reason, though we might understand it. So he should feel good about it and not be sad.
Yes, the cruelty of speaking to the family this way is appalling. We don’t know why God allows dreadful things like the premature death of a parent, or of a 15-year-old boy in a traffic accident. Now I suppose there are some people who don’t know better; who have been taught that this is the case, and are just trying to do what they believe is best. That does not diminish the magnitude of the error at all, and the reduced culpability of the perpetrators does not diminish the cruelty of their conduct.
The minister continued by saying that the visitors he remembered with gratitude were the ones “who bore with us.” Who did not try to diminish, reduce, or minimize any of the pain at all, but made it clear that they were there for them no matter what.
I had never fully understood the significance of the expression “to bear with” somebody.
So what does all this have to do with “peace”? I’m glad you asked.
In a bible study a few years ago, we got to the part of the Mass where we all make the peace offering to one another, and someone brought up the question: Just what is this “peace” we are offering? What is the particular peace of Jesus Christ, which is not the world’s peace? We talked about it a lot without getting to a conclusion, until a woman stepped over to the bookshelf and hauled out a reference book. I don’t remember the exact words, but here’s my paraphrase:
“God’s ‘peace’ is the union of the human will with God’s will so that no competing will or desire can enter.”
The “desire” they refer to clearly does not let us off the hook; Jesus would have liked to avoid the Crucifixion if possible; the prospect was so dreadful He fell on the ground and sweated blood. He gave the full consent of His will for His own crucifixion; with no reservations; nothing held back. He was at peace with the will of the Father, but it did not take the pain away.
We must remember that this is the “peace” He left us. Not the world’s peace, which would free us from worldly sorrows and pains if it could. But a “peace” that means one’s heart is “untroubled”; is a still as a quiet pool, settled with total faith; unflinching trust, in acceptance of the Father’s will, no mater what storms of worldly loss, sorrow, and pain are raging around it.
Now, please consider the word “comfort”. All right; if there is a good, loving, all-powerful God, and He does choose to let these dreadful things happen, then why does He let us suffer so? If all our losses and sufferings will be made up fully in Heaven, then why does He allow us to suffer so dreadfully here? Why doesn’t He comfort us? If a loved one dies, and we suffer from their absence and sorrow for their destruction, it is said that we need not trouble ourselves; they are in Heaven and we will be reunited with them. Then why does God not let us contact them, and be reassured as to their happiness, and be relieved of the pain of separation? If He is so good and powerful, can’t He give us that comfort?
But the “comfort” spoken of in the Gospels, for instance when, eventually, an angel came to Jesus in Gethsemane and “comforted” him, is not the comfort I referred to in the paragraph above. “Comfort” comes from Latin. “Com”, to be with; and “fortis”; strength. So to give someone “comfort” is to be with them and strengthen them so that they can endure their grief or pain. It’s more like nutrition than opiates. The astounding and terrifying reality is that the comfort that our loving Savior offers us is to give us strength to endure our pain and grief, not take any of it away.
You may have seen a popular illustration of the angel comforting Jesus in the garden. The angel is holding Jesus’ head on his shoulder, with his arms around the Lord’s shoulder, comforting him like a parent cuddling a child. This picture, though done with great feeling, makes me suspicious. It smacks too much of the idea of “comfort” as a painkiller. I much prefer a black-and-white illustration in an old 1923-vintage prayer book I inherited from my father. The illustration may have been quite a bit older; 19th Century. Jesus is on the left, facing right, kneeling and leaning on a stone with His hands clasped in prayer and supplication. On the right, facing Jesus, is the Angel. Not holding Jesus’ head on his shoulder. But proffering a cup—the chalice of the Passion; the Cup of Fire. And on the angel’s face is an expression not of sympathy but of gentle but stern insistence. The angel is not meant to be at all cruel. But in this angel’s face and demeanor is no reluctance at all to urge Jesus to suffering. This angel is there to bear with Jesus, with no qualms at all about the amount of suffering Jesus will have to endure. It is for the will of God, after all, and none of God’s angels ever have any qualms or hesitations about that. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary entry on Comfort: “…from Late Latin confortare to strengthen greatly, from Latin com- + fortis strong.”
Now, let me address the word “agony”. Of the three words I am trying to clarify here, this is probably the most misunderstood in terms of how Christianity uses them.
From the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary entry on “Agony”: “1 a: intense pain of mind or body : anguish, torture b: the struggle that precedes death”
This is pretty much the sum total of the current usage; very great pain, and that’s all. Therefore when we hear “The Agony in the Garden”, we quite naturally think that the words refer to the very great pain Jesus suffered there. It’s too easy to go from there and think that the significance of His experience there was that He felt a very great deal of pain at accepting God’s will. There is a good lesson for us in this, of course; if it’s painful to accept God’s will we should do so anyway. Fine.
But there’s another, deeper point that we miss due to the contemporary usage of “agony” to simply mean “great suffering”
Take a look at this additional material from the Merriam-Webster entry on “Agony”: “2: a violent struggle or contest3: a strong sudden display (as of joy or delight) : outburst” And: “Etymology:
Middle English agonie, from Late Latin agonia, from Greek agōnia struggle, anguish, from agōn gathering, contest for a prize, from agein to lead, celebrate — more at agent “
Okay; from “AGENT”: “…from Latin, present participle of agere to drive, lead, act, do; akin to Old Norse aka to travel in a vehicle, Greek agein to drive, lead
Date:
15th century
1: one that acts or exerts power2 a: something that produces or is capable of producing an effect : an active or efficient cause”
In the original Greek, “agon” was the struggle an athlete went through to push themselves to the absolute best they could, despite all the resistance of their pain and fatigue. Eventually they used the word “agony” to refer to any struggle between our lower selves and appetites and our higher selves. To refuse to eat or drink too much could be an “agony”, if it cost you sufficient pain. “Agony” was considered to be the truest expression of one’s virtue. It was considered natural that you had a part of you that did not want to do what you should, and that to go against that part of yourself to make yourself do your best would cost you pain; and the truest virtue was displayed when this pain was greatest.
This is why the Olympic Games were the most sacred festival in Greece, and while athletic games were considered the very most reverent rites to hold at a funeral. It is in the struggle to make your own body obey your will despite all pain and fatigue and resistance that your virtue, your will to overcome your worst self and give yourself entirely to the gods, was most clearly shown.
If a man was wounded in battle and lying there in terrible pain, and someone said to one of these Greeks that he was “in agony”, they would say, “No he’s not; he’s in pain.” At Guadalcanal, one time there was a massive Japanese attack against a thin line of Marines. A heavy machine gun held a vital part of that line, and a grenade or artillery shell killed both loaders and blinded the gunner. He continued loading and firing for hours, working by feel. There is a detail of this incident that makes it relevant to this: He had to change barrels frequently (a characteristic of air-cooled machine guns). A pair of asbestos gloves were provided for this, since the barrel to be removed is generally as hot as a soldering iron. The gunner could not find the gloves. So he changed the barrels with his bare hands, burning them terribly, and continued loading and firing all night.
“Now, that’s an agony,” the ancient Greeks would have said admiringly.
In ancient Sparta, there were only two circumstances in which you would get a marked grave with your name on it (or a memorial stone if you were buried elsewhere). First, if you were a man and died in battle. Second, if you were a woman and died in childbirth. Your agony was honored. Not the pain you suffered. But that you suffered it to the death, by your own free will, for the survival and future of your community.
So the “agony” the writers of the Gospels were thinking of when they say Jesus “fell into an agony” was not at all what we would normally think of these days. He did not simply find himself in a terrible pain of fearful anticipation, and then endure and triumph over it. That would have been plenty, of course. Rather He felt the temptation to falter, to draw back, from His utter abandonment of himself to the Father’s will, and He brought His own will to bear against that part of himself, His human weakness, and fought it so hard that He caused himself to sweat blood. It was an agony like a Greek at a funeral game, desperate to not let the memory of a dead friend or relative be dishonored by any holding back on his part.
It was not the passive experience of great pain. It was a very active struggle, with connotations of leadership, of agency, where the desire to do what was right was held to to the uttermost limit of pain.
…Well.
I guess it’s not hard to see why these ideas are not so familiar these days, with our culture of hedonism and entitlement. So pervasive is this that even quite devout Christians find it a struggle to keep these things in mind. It takes a considerable effort of study and careful consideration to keep from losing track of these things in our current cultural environment. It took me considerable reading and study on my own to learn these things. I cannot fault the preaching at my church; how much can the best priest teach in one homily a week, given how contrary this is to the entire mainstream cultural environment?
I believe that our God is not cruel. He is kind; kinder than we can ever comprehend; kinder far beyond the kindest human we ever meet in our lives today. And I also find that the reality of His kindness is very much at odds with a culture of hedonism and entitlement; a culture that thinks of “comfort” merely as relief from pain; of “peace” to be an absence of any disturbance or difficulty at all; of “agony” to be nothing but an misfortune imposed by outside circumstances.
God wants us to ultimately be eternally happy and free from all suffering with Him in Heaven. In the meantime, here on Earth, we are offered His kindness to deal with difficulties here. He offers comfort, which from Him means to give us strength to endure our sufferings no matter how severe and protracted. He left us His peace, which means our hearts can rest in the will of the Father no matter how much pain and fear we are going through. And He left us the example of His agony, which was to persist against all our contrary impulses in consenting to the Father’s will. We are promised grace to help us in these things, and given a Church with sacraments, liturgy, teaching, everything we need in abundance, to reach for God’s grace in our lives.
I have the example of Jesus to tell me that it’s okay to find the necessity of giving consent to God’s will can involve truly dreadful pain. Of course, it means to act in obedience, but it also means to consent in our hearts, as Jesus did in Gethsemane.
Surely it’s dreadful for my friend, whose father is so ill, not only to go on doing housework while precious and possibly limited time she might have to spend with her father here on Earth drains irretrievably away. Surely it’s dreadful that she is called not only to do this, but to say, as she washes dishes, does laundry, and diapers little ones, and the days drain away forever, but to say as she does so. “Thy will be done;” to say in her hear to God that she accepts and consents to His will in this.
That is her “agony”. Many the Jesus of Gethsemane be with her. May His angel comfort her in the third hour of her grief.
And while I cannot begin to compare my pain with hers, I find it dreadful to consider what she’s going through, and to have to turn to the Father and also say, “Thy will be done.”
Truly I cannot compare my pain with hers. I just broke down sobbing for a few seconds. But I live alone. She does not have the luxury of allowing herself to break down in front of her children. She can only do so in whatever private moments she can steel. Otherwise she has to hold in her tears no matter how much she needs to release them.
That’s dreadful.
God is kind. His will be done.
LogEyed Roman
Here’s a link to an article in the “California Catholic Daily” on this subject. It’s titled “God is not nice. The truth hurts.” http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=c3078848-dba3-4770-b339-988ef4004819
One distinction: The author uses “Nice” to refer to the principle, which many people today have fallen into, that not hurting people’s feelings is the very most important thing. The problem is that this too often slips into withholding the truth because people might not like to hear it. He points out that the excessive desire to be “nice” can lead to unkindness. It may seem “nice” to withhold bad news about a terminal disease from someone. But it’s kind, he says, and I agree, to tell someone the truth. It may hurt someone to have their hopes dashed, but if these are false hopes, the sooner they are relieved of them the better.
I just learned today that a good friend’s father has a grave neurological disease; the kind which you can’t treat and which generally means an early death after a long deterioration of your quality of life. This is a good man and he’s still below retirement age. My friend has many obligations of her own and is not able to do what every fiber of her being calls for: Go and be with her father, helping him, supporting her mother, comforting him as best she can and being with him as much as she can.
This is a family of devout Catholics, and they all believe in the love of God and the redeeming nature of suffering. That does not mean it is not painful. Certainly the father would prefer to live a full natural lifespan without such deterioration of his quality of life. With every fiber of HIS being.
I know of other examples, but I’m sure my readers can supply more than enough of their own.
So what, exactly, is going on here? God is supposed to be good and all-powerful. As the ancient question goes, How could He do this? Or allow it? And how are we supposed to deal with it? If God is not going to stop this, why do we still suffer so much? Where is this peace and comfort they go on and on about?
Okay. I want to deal with those two words, “peace” and “comfort”; and another word: “Agony”.
Take, for instance, “peace.” At the Last Supper, Our Lord said: "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
What, “Do not let your heart be troubled”??? That’s confusing to us these days. And can lead, yes, to cruelty and the appearance thereof, including cruelty perpetrated wrongly in God’s name.
Okay; I will give another example.
Many years ago I attended a memorial service for a 15-year-old boy who died in a traffic accident. The minister was a Protestant, but God bless him, He was not “nice”.
He began his homily by telling us that his father died when he was eight. The family got a number of callers. He spoke of the pain inflicted by the “pious liars” who came by and told them not to feel bad, because God surely knew what was best, and therefore took his daddy away for a good reason, though we might understand it. So he should feel good about it and not be sad.
Yes, the cruelty of speaking to the family this way is appalling. We don’t know why God allows dreadful things like the premature death of a parent, or of a 15-year-old boy in a traffic accident. Now I suppose there are some people who don’t know better; who have been taught that this is the case, and are just trying to do what they believe is best. That does not diminish the magnitude of the error at all, and the reduced culpability of the perpetrators does not diminish the cruelty of their conduct.
The minister continued by saying that the visitors he remembered with gratitude were the ones “who bore with us.” Who did not try to diminish, reduce, or minimize any of the pain at all, but made it clear that they were there for them no matter what.
I had never fully understood the significance of the expression “to bear with” somebody.
So what does all this have to do with “peace”? I’m glad you asked.
In a bible study a few years ago, we got to the part of the Mass where we all make the peace offering to one another, and someone brought up the question: Just what is this “peace” we are offering? What is the particular peace of Jesus Christ, which is not the world’s peace? We talked about it a lot without getting to a conclusion, until a woman stepped over to the bookshelf and hauled out a reference book. I don’t remember the exact words, but here’s my paraphrase:
“God’s ‘peace’ is the union of the human will with God’s will so that no competing will or desire can enter.”
The “desire” they refer to clearly does not let us off the hook; Jesus would have liked to avoid the Crucifixion if possible; the prospect was so dreadful He fell on the ground and sweated blood. He gave the full consent of His will for His own crucifixion; with no reservations; nothing held back. He was at peace with the will of the Father, but it did not take the pain away.
We must remember that this is the “peace” He left us. Not the world’s peace, which would free us from worldly sorrows and pains if it could. But a “peace” that means one’s heart is “untroubled”; is a still as a quiet pool, settled with total faith; unflinching trust, in acceptance of the Father’s will, no mater what storms of worldly loss, sorrow, and pain are raging around it.
Now, please consider the word “comfort”. All right; if there is a good, loving, all-powerful God, and He does choose to let these dreadful things happen, then why does He let us suffer so? If all our losses and sufferings will be made up fully in Heaven, then why does He allow us to suffer so dreadfully here? Why doesn’t He comfort us? If a loved one dies, and we suffer from their absence and sorrow for their destruction, it is said that we need not trouble ourselves; they are in Heaven and we will be reunited with them. Then why does God not let us contact them, and be reassured as to their happiness, and be relieved of the pain of separation? If He is so good and powerful, can’t He give us that comfort?
But the “comfort” spoken of in the Gospels, for instance when, eventually, an angel came to Jesus in Gethsemane and “comforted” him, is not the comfort I referred to in the paragraph above. “Comfort” comes from Latin. “Com”, to be with; and “fortis”; strength. So to give someone “comfort” is to be with them and strengthen them so that they can endure their grief or pain. It’s more like nutrition than opiates. The astounding and terrifying reality is that the comfort that our loving Savior offers us is to give us strength to endure our pain and grief, not take any of it away.
You may have seen a popular illustration of the angel comforting Jesus in the garden. The angel is holding Jesus’ head on his shoulder, with his arms around the Lord’s shoulder, comforting him like a parent cuddling a child. This picture, though done with great feeling, makes me suspicious. It smacks too much of the idea of “comfort” as a painkiller. I much prefer a black-and-white illustration in an old 1923-vintage prayer book I inherited from my father. The illustration may have been quite a bit older; 19th Century. Jesus is on the left, facing right, kneeling and leaning on a stone with His hands clasped in prayer and supplication. On the right, facing Jesus, is the Angel. Not holding Jesus’ head on his shoulder. But proffering a cup—the chalice of the Passion; the Cup of Fire. And on the angel’s face is an expression not of sympathy but of gentle but stern insistence. The angel is not meant to be at all cruel. But in this angel’s face and demeanor is no reluctance at all to urge Jesus to suffering. This angel is there to bear with Jesus, with no qualms at all about the amount of suffering Jesus will have to endure. It is for the will of God, after all, and none of God’s angels ever have any qualms or hesitations about that. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary entry on Comfort: “…from Late Latin confortare to strengthen greatly, from Latin com- + fortis strong.”
Now, let me address the word “agony”. Of the three words I am trying to clarify here, this is probably the most misunderstood in terms of how Christianity uses them.
From the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary entry on “Agony”: “1 a: intense pain of mind or body : anguish, torture b: the struggle that precedes death”
This is pretty much the sum total of the current usage; very great pain, and that’s all. Therefore when we hear “The Agony in the Garden”, we quite naturally think that the words refer to the very great pain Jesus suffered there. It’s too easy to go from there and think that the significance of His experience there was that He felt a very great deal of pain at accepting God’s will. There is a good lesson for us in this, of course; if it’s painful to accept God’s will we should do so anyway. Fine.
But there’s another, deeper point that we miss due to the contemporary usage of “agony” to simply mean “great suffering”
Take a look at this additional material from the Merriam-Webster entry on “Agony”: “2: a violent struggle or contest3: a strong sudden display (as of joy or delight) : outburst” And: “Etymology:
Middle English agonie, from Late Latin agonia, from Greek agōnia struggle, anguish, from agōn gathering, contest for a prize, from agein to lead, celebrate — more at agent “
Okay; from “AGENT”: “…from Latin, present participle of agere to drive, lead, act, do; akin to Old Norse aka to travel in a vehicle, Greek agein to drive, lead
Date:
15th century
1: one that acts or exerts power2 a: something that produces or is capable of producing an effect : an active or efficient cause”
In the original Greek, “agon” was the struggle an athlete went through to push themselves to the absolute best they could, despite all the resistance of their pain and fatigue. Eventually they used the word “agony” to refer to any struggle between our lower selves and appetites and our higher selves. To refuse to eat or drink too much could be an “agony”, if it cost you sufficient pain. “Agony” was considered to be the truest expression of one’s virtue. It was considered natural that you had a part of you that did not want to do what you should, and that to go against that part of yourself to make yourself do your best would cost you pain; and the truest virtue was displayed when this pain was greatest.
This is why the Olympic Games were the most sacred festival in Greece, and while athletic games were considered the very most reverent rites to hold at a funeral. It is in the struggle to make your own body obey your will despite all pain and fatigue and resistance that your virtue, your will to overcome your worst self and give yourself entirely to the gods, was most clearly shown.
If a man was wounded in battle and lying there in terrible pain, and someone said to one of these Greeks that he was “in agony”, they would say, “No he’s not; he’s in pain.” At Guadalcanal, one time there was a massive Japanese attack against a thin line of Marines. A heavy machine gun held a vital part of that line, and a grenade or artillery shell killed both loaders and blinded the gunner. He continued loading and firing for hours, working by feel. There is a detail of this incident that makes it relevant to this: He had to change barrels frequently (a characteristic of air-cooled machine guns). A pair of asbestos gloves were provided for this, since the barrel to be removed is generally as hot as a soldering iron. The gunner could not find the gloves. So he changed the barrels with his bare hands, burning them terribly, and continued loading and firing all night.
“Now, that’s an agony,” the ancient Greeks would have said admiringly.
In ancient Sparta, there were only two circumstances in which you would get a marked grave with your name on it (or a memorial stone if you were buried elsewhere). First, if you were a man and died in battle. Second, if you were a woman and died in childbirth. Your agony was honored. Not the pain you suffered. But that you suffered it to the death, by your own free will, for the survival and future of your community.
So the “agony” the writers of the Gospels were thinking of when they say Jesus “fell into an agony” was not at all what we would normally think of these days. He did not simply find himself in a terrible pain of fearful anticipation, and then endure and triumph over it. That would have been plenty, of course. Rather He felt the temptation to falter, to draw back, from His utter abandonment of himself to the Father’s will, and He brought His own will to bear against that part of himself, His human weakness, and fought it so hard that He caused himself to sweat blood. It was an agony like a Greek at a funeral game, desperate to not let the memory of a dead friend or relative be dishonored by any holding back on his part.
It was not the passive experience of great pain. It was a very active struggle, with connotations of leadership, of agency, where the desire to do what was right was held to to the uttermost limit of pain.
…Well.
I guess it’s not hard to see why these ideas are not so familiar these days, with our culture of hedonism and entitlement. So pervasive is this that even quite devout Christians find it a struggle to keep these things in mind. It takes a considerable effort of study and careful consideration to keep from losing track of these things in our current cultural environment. It took me considerable reading and study on my own to learn these things. I cannot fault the preaching at my church; how much can the best priest teach in one homily a week, given how contrary this is to the entire mainstream cultural environment?
I believe that our God is not cruel. He is kind; kinder than we can ever comprehend; kinder far beyond the kindest human we ever meet in our lives today. And I also find that the reality of His kindness is very much at odds with a culture of hedonism and entitlement; a culture that thinks of “comfort” merely as relief from pain; of “peace” to be an absence of any disturbance or difficulty at all; of “agony” to be nothing but an misfortune imposed by outside circumstances.
God wants us to ultimately be eternally happy and free from all suffering with Him in Heaven. In the meantime, here on Earth, we are offered His kindness to deal with difficulties here. He offers comfort, which from Him means to give us strength to endure our sufferings no matter how severe and protracted. He left us His peace, which means our hearts can rest in the will of the Father no matter how much pain and fear we are going through. And He left us the example of His agony, which was to persist against all our contrary impulses in consenting to the Father’s will. We are promised grace to help us in these things, and given a Church with sacraments, liturgy, teaching, everything we need in abundance, to reach for God’s grace in our lives.
I have the example of Jesus to tell me that it’s okay to find the necessity of giving consent to God’s will can involve truly dreadful pain. Of course, it means to act in obedience, but it also means to consent in our hearts, as Jesus did in Gethsemane.
Surely it’s dreadful for my friend, whose father is so ill, not only to go on doing housework while precious and possibly limited time she might have to spend with her father here on Earth drains irretrievably away. Surely it’s dreadful that she is called not only to do this, but to say, as she washes dishes, does laundry, and diapers little ones, and the days drain away forever, but to say as she does so. “Thy will be done;” to say in her hear to God that she accepts and consents to His will in this.
That is her “agony”. Many the Jesus of Gethsemane be with her. May His angel comfort her in the third hour of her grief.
And while I cannot begin to compare my pain with hers, I find it dreadful to consider what she’s going through, and to have to turn to the Father and also say, “Thy will be done.”
Truly I cannot compare my pain with hers. I just broke down sobbing for a few seconds. But I live alone. She does not have the luxury of allowing herself to break down in front of her children. She can only do so in whatever private moments she can steel. Otherwise she has to hold in her tears no matter how much she needs to release them.
That’s dreadful.
God is kind. His will be done.
LogEyed Roman
posted by LogEyed Roman at 9:45 PM
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