Diminishing our Pain

People say to me, "Things in my life are pretty hard right now, but I have no right to complain—it’s not Auschwitz." This kind of comparison can lead us to minimize or diminish our own suffering. If we discount our pain, or punish ourselves for feeling lost or isolated or scared about the challenges in our lives, however insignificant these challenges may seem to someone else, then we’re still choosing to be victims. We’re judging ourselves. I don’t want you to hear my story and say, "My own suffering is less significant. " I want you to hear my story and say, "If she can do it, then so can I."

 Auschwitz survivor Edith Eva Eger in her book The Choice

Bless you Prison

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: ‘Bless you, prison!’ I…have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: ‘Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!’”

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (Born Dec. 11, 1918), The Gulag Archipelago

This is Love

"This is love: Not that we loved God. It is that he loved us and sent his Son to give his life to pay for our sins." 1 John 4:10

“In this is love..” or another translation could be “In this way is seen the true love."

God didn’t look down and say, “Boy, I see you love me. I think I’ll love you.” Or “You’re a nice guy, I really like that.”

Instead:

You were rebellious, arrogant, self-centered. God said, “I love you.”

You ignored him, fought him, were bored with him. God said, “I love you.”

You spit in his face, yelled at him, shook your fist. God said, “I love you.”

That’s what John means here.

We see what real love is by looking at what God did. He loved us with a desire to restore us, to make us whole.

Stephen Goforth