There are some things that we lose for which we have opportunity to share the experience with others. Most recently, my family - as I have mentioned in previous posts - has been going through the time of life when the last remaining patriarch passes from this life to the next, and his children who have become parents in their own right now take up the role as the grandparents, and the whole lot of us shift ahead 1 full generation in the span of a week.
In that, we lose respectively our Dad, Granddad, Great-Granddad, and we each of us also lose something of our own previous innocence as we are called upon to step up into the next phase of life.
But there are other losses for which, sometimes, we cannot be prepared. Perhaps they are, nevertheless, universal experiences, but somehow the weight of them is something we must carry Alone. Like harboring some very deep and abiding Torment within our breast, and even "torment" is not strong enough a word....Some very agonizing pain as our heart has wrapped itself in love around some thing or some one, and then without warning - as if to defy that happiness or Forever that we innately expect - that some thing or some one is wrenched from our grasp, torn from our affection, and we are left standing there trying to make sense of these dripping, coagulating pieces of what once was a pulsing, life-giving organ.
In Galatians, chapter 6, the Apostle Paul states very early on in the chapter that we are to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. This is a verse with which I have been familiar since childhood. But I find it somewhat funny, then, that I didn't notice that very few verses later he states that each one must bear his own load (v. 5). My pastor had pointed this out to me in a conversation a couple of years ago, and the thought has been rolling around in my head ever since - not as though there is some contradiction, here, but how could he be stating both things, how could both be true, and NOT be opposites as they might appear to the naked eye. My pastor had also suggested the solution to the problem in that same conversation - namely; when you come alongside someone and thrust your shoulder, for example, up under a corner of his heavy load (thinking metaphysically) to help him carry it, it is NOT as though you are taking it FROM him, but simply carrying it WITH him, as was your intent all along. Thus, some of that weight is still his, and his Alone, to shoulder....
So too, I am coming to appreciate that there are some pains in life which, in the attempts to explain them to others and in this way so rid myself of them, I simply must bear Alone. Only I can feel and endure the hurt of what I have lost. And in my reflections on this - as I am currently enduring one such loss and praying to God for some relief lest I be done in - I am reminded also of the counsel I received from my much younger brother - who is, every now and again, very wise beyond his years - just this time last year.
He had been meditating on what it means to possess and cultivate that "quiet and gentle spirit" which is precious in the sight of God (cf. 1 Peter, chapter 3). And the Lord revealed to him again the passage in the account of the birth of Christ which described how his mother, Mary, had "treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." And so, the Spirit convicted my brother, and through his testimony convicted me, that one - perhaps even the Main - way in which I could [intentionally] cultivate that very same "quiet and gentle spirit" which I have so longed for and which has always seemed (to my view) to ellude me, was to recognize those moments when some thing or some one was only mine to treasure in my heart, and ponder it there, untouched, as it were, by any other onlooker.
A way of cultivating a greater intimacy with and indeed dependence on that same Christ who is by this means the only One left with whom I can share the inner workings of my heart - for joy or for sorrow - when I discipline myself to withhold that which I would otherwise (by my particular and perhaps peculiar nature) feel "compelled" to spill to any listening ear!
So the pain isn't necessarily even lessened, but it is somehow mysteriously sweetened as it becomes a means of communion with the God who made me and who is conforming me each day more and more to the likeness of his Beloved Son in whom he is well pleased.
Still, I must bear my own load. This is only mine, and by it the Lord teaches me to wait on him, to treasure up all these things - my joys and my sorrows - and ponder them in my heart, as if a sacrifice or an offering just for Him....
No comments:
Post a Comment