Many Christians bear the invisible
stigmata, for after all suffering is a part of Christian life; but that is only
our share in the lot of all humankind.
Our sufferings come from many sources, not the least from
ourselves. I grieve that I cause pain to
others, and thus to myself.
Christian
lovers, who have considered within themselves the nature of Love, will have
known from the beginning that there is another side to the early delight. To them it is a place of purgation as well as
joy; it is in truth a little universe of place and time, of earth, of
purgatory, of heaven or hell. The
companion in this experience is to him or to her the instrument of fire which
shall burn away his corrupt part. . .
Love
is Holiness and Divine Indignation; the placidity of an ordinary married life
is the veil of a spiritual passage into profound things. Nor is this all; the lover knows himself also
to be the cross upon which the Beloved is to be stretched, and so she also of
her lover.[i]
Paul advocates, “Husbands, love your
wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”[ii] It is sometimes necessary to die to ourselves
even as Christ died to himself. That
dying is not academic, but personal and painful. There is suffering within marriage. It would be some sort of solace if we could
delude ourselves into thinking that we were not at least partially responsible
for the pain that we are experiencing.
Sometimes we are largely responsible, at other times we are not; but it
really doesn't matter who is to blame.
The blame game has no place in our surrender to being stretched on the
cross of our beloved.
It is natural to desire to avoid the
pain; but it is necessary to tread the way of acceptance rather than to kick
against the goads. Sometimes the inner
being throws up a froth of anger, resentment, and self-pity, stemming from a
sense of helplessness. Giving vent to
these things only rubs the wounds raw.
The problem in part is our desire to control the outcome and reduce our
pain, but what if that is not possible.
Then what does one do? Make your
surrender to God in the real situation in which you find yourself. Live in the
real, the now, and forsake the past. You
cannot yet live in the future; do not borrow its imagined woes. Resist the
temptation to fix what is not yours to fix. Pray and pray again. Use the tools of your faith. Read Scripture, learn, and inwardly
digest. Turn your reading into prayer. Listen, and be responsive. Fear not, but trust in the One who redeems
all things.
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