Embracing Suffering

Sometimes poverty needs a face, a gentle reminder that all is not well with the world, that there are many who have it worse than you or I. A couple of things hit home for me this week. While listening to a pod cast by Rob Bell about Paul, I was struck by the thought that I need to embrace suffering. It's there, it's part of life. I can kick and struggle, I can try to ignore it, I can try to disguise it, but it will still be there. But if I embrace it, it will still be there, but it's not so frightening anymore. Suffering is meant to keep our souls alive, to keep us from growing cold and hard, from forgetting that we need God in our lives.

When we embrace our own suffering, the eyes of our soul are also opened to see the suffering around us. Myanmar. China. Iraq. Lebanon. The list goes on and on. I could send you faces and stories from where I live, and I plan to continue to do that. But poverty and injustice are closer than that. They are around you, wherever you are. And you can make a difference. Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed and discouraged, I read the ancient words of the prophet Jeremiah, "Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know Me? declares the Lord. "

Soon after we began to think about moving here, a dear friend of mine shared the following Franciscan prayer with me -

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and the exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

I love it. I can think of no better way to sign off.

God bless you...