Welcome, Dear Pain
The last week has been quite a saga, beloved. I don't quite know how to sum it up briefly, but I'll try. On Tuesday, Mama and Dad found an idyllic farm that was for rent and at the same time received an offer for our house. On Wed/Thurs, they counter-offered and finally accepted an offer (lower than what we wanted, but we could swing it) on the strength of hoping to rent this farm, for which we submitted an application. All seemed set in stone; I began to contact farms about buying a horse (and fell in love with one), and we arranged to bring our family out to see the place on Saturday.
We arrived Saturday (ourselves, two live-ins, two cousins, and one married brother with his wife and child, not counting realtors) to find that the present tenants seemed greatly puzzled by our presence there. "But the people who are renting this place are moving in next Friday," they said.
Our hearts plummeted. What had happened was that the realtor responsible for leasing the farm had accepted our application (and application fee) without telling us that it was already rented. And we had accepted an inferior offer for the house on that understanding. We stood around in the yard full of fruit trees and sunlight which will now never be ours, and felt exceedingly awkward because we were numb. Later, we would feel much more than awkwardness.
I don't know, beloved, whether you've ever had your world suddenly turn all golden after a long period of grayness, and then, as though its own brightness were too much for existence, shatter. I don't know whether you've ever seen it happen in the space of less than a week. My poor parents are now in a position of being bound to sell our house (and move by October), but we know not where, except that it shall probably be into suburbia or (still worse) townhouses, which is a thought both dreary and horribly in contrast to the radiant happiness we felt on Friday. What breaks my heart most is how they had their hearts set on this farm. I hadn't seen them so light, so carefree, so happy (my mother in particular) for two years. From that moment until the present, I have scarcely felt for myself---I feel only for them, and that is excruciating enough.
If I were to feel for myself.... well, those who have been reading my blog for a long time can imagine what my feelings would be. You know, beloved. You remember my childhood agony over leaving just such a farm. You remember how it blotted out the sun for me for five bitter years. You know how I felt about horses, how I've missed them now for a decade. You can imagine what it would be like to almost have that rural childhood experience which has shaped so many of my ideals handed back to me---and then not.
But I am not feeling for myself. I won't allow it. I can't, you see. I am hurting enough as it is for my dear ones; were I to add my own pain, it would be beyond my present grace to bear.
In God's perfection (how beautiful He is!), today's sermon was called "Don't Waste Your Suffering." I think we were all in tears at various points, though less for ourselves than for Jon Smith, who in preaching narrated the tragic loss of his infant son, a child that had a rare defect and died---suffocated slowly to death---just a few hours after being born. Our pain is nothing to that of the Smith family, but it was so good, so helpful, to hear from a man who knows what suffering is.
Since this is not my first, nor yet my second or third deep experience of suffering, nothing that Jon said was really new---but to hear something new is not the point. The point is to hear, to be reminded of truth. Phrases, snatches of songs and scripture, and bits of wisdom came crowding back to me. Strength and hope, memories of lessons learned, flooded in at the cracks of my blackened mind, and work most powerfully. I still breathe---miraculously, my soul even sings and exults. How strange it is to follow Christ, who crowds out of one's heart everything but His own sweetness!
Therefore, though you may think it strange, beloved, I say, "Welcome, dear pain!" For since I have known Christ, there has never been a pain which did not draw me still to Him, and that is a blessing worth any cost. I touch God's face at such times. Give me therefore more pain, if more is more of Him, as it is. Burst my heart if necessary; I give it freely to be burnt, for then it goes to Him, for Whom it was made. There are delectables hidden in this bitter pill.
Never fear, beloved. God knows what house, what place, what purpose He has. We will survive. Pray only this: that we survive with joy. He deserves nothing less, and what could be more to our truest happiness?
We arrived Saturday (ourselves, two live-ins, two cousins, and one married brother with his wife and child, not counting realtors) to find that the present tenants seemed greatly puzzled by our presence there. "But the people who are renting this place are moving in next Friday," they said.
Our hearts plummeted. What had happened was that the realtor responsible for leasing the farm had accepted our application (and application fee) without telling us that it was already rented. And we had accepted an inferior offer for the house on that understanding. We stood around in the yard full of fruit trees and sunlight which will now never be ours, and felt exceedingly awkward because we were numb. Later, we would feel much more than awkwardness.
I don't know, beloved, whether you've ever had your world suddenly turn all golden after a long period of grayness, and then, as though its own brightness were too much for existence, shatter. I don't know whether you've ever seen it happen in the space of less than a week. My poor parents are now in a position of being bound to sell our house (and move by October), but we know not where, except that it shall probably be into suburbia or (still worse) townhouses, which is a thought both dreary and horribly in contrast to the radiant happiness we felt on Friday. What breaks my heart most is how they had their hearts set on this farm. I hadn't seen them so light, so carefree, so happy (my mother in particular) for two years. From that moment until the present, I have scarcely felt for myself---I feel only for them, and that is excruciating enough.
If I were to feel for myself.... well, those who have been reading my blog for a long time can imagine what my feelings would be. You know, beloved. You remember my childhood agony over leaving just such a farm. You remember how it blotted out the sun for me for five bitter years. You know how I felt about horses, how I've missed them now for a decade. You can imagine what it would be like to almost have that rural childhood experience which has shaped so many of my ideals handed back to me---and then not.
But I am not feeling for myself. I won't allow it. I can't, you see. I am hurting enough as it is for my dear ones; were I to add my own pain, it would be beyond my present grace to bear.
In God's perfection (how beautiful He is!), today's sermon was called "Don't Waste Your Suffering." I think we were all in tears at various points, though less for ourselves than for Jon Smith, who in preaching narrated the tragic loss of his infant son, a child that had a rare defect and died---suffocated slowly to death---just a few hours after being born. Our pain is nothing to that of the Smith family, but it was so good, so helpful, to hear from a man who knows what suffering is.
Since this is not my first, nor yet my second or third deep experience of suffering, nothing that Jon said was really new---but to hear something new is not the point. The point is to hear, to be reminded of truth. Phrases, snatches of songs and scripture, and bits of wisdom came crowding back to me. Strength and hope, memories of lessons learned, flooded in at the cracks of my blackened mind, and work most powerfully. I still breathe---miraculously, my soul even sings and exults. How strange it is to follow Christ, who crowds out of one's heart everything but His own sweetness!
Therefore, though you may think it strange, beloved, I say, "Welcome, dear pain!" For since I have known Christ, there has never been a pain which did not draw me still to Him, and that is a blessing worth any cost. I touch God's face at such times. Give me therefore more pain, if more is more of Him, as it is. Burst my heart if necessary; I give it freely to be burnt, for then it goes to Him, for Whom it was made. There are delectables hidden in this bitter pill.
Never fear, beloved. God knows what house, what place, what purpose He has. We will survive. Pray only this: that we survive with joy. He deserves nothing less, and what could be more to our truest happiness?
posted by Praelucor at 8:37 PM
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