Pain is the Voice of Love Calling Us Home

Transcript

“We have to learn to trust the darkness of new birth and the darkness of death’s desolation: the pain of dying. We may not always see it, but new life is being birthed. Conversion is not just a one-time experience. To love means to be born over and over and over again. But new life”— trust that—“in the midst of the pain is being birthed. It is underneath the darkness and the pain. Pain is the voice of Love calling us home.” How else is God going to get our attention if we don’t suffer pain? Pain gets our attention—and particularly emotional pain. “Our work is to get in touch with the voice of Love. If we resist or run away, we only deepen our pain and create more pain and chaos for other people”—particularly those who live close to us, spouses if we have them, brothers and sisters, family, friends, and out from there. If we sense that things are coming together, then we know that reconciliation is happening, that we are growing. If we sense that things are falling apart, then that’s a sign to look deep within. How is this speaking this to me? What can I do to become a true reconciling factor in the midst of this chaos? “Our real work is to stop our resistance and be willing to go through the pain of inner death before the end of our physical life.” Take time to allow the pain to teach you. Embrace the pain; learn from your pain. What is God trying to teach me in the midst of this dark night—this time of not knowing, of not understanding, of suffering and pain? Allow that to teach you something. “God created us in love and He longs to recreate us in mercy. This purgation can be very severe, but it is also merciful.” God is a God of love and of mercy. He will not ask more of us than we can bear. We need to trust that. “It brings us finally to a place of deep love and acceptance.” Embracing our pain and allowing it to break our hearts, not only brings us finally to a place of deeper love and acceptance, but it brings us to compassion—to the capacity of simply being present to others in their suffering. What does compassion mean? Come be with me in my suffering. We don’t have to do anything or fix anything. We can’t—that’s God’s work—but we can be with people in their suffering and they have a sense of knowing that we care. “Your pain and your cross can and will speak to the wounded hearts of others in God’s time and in His way. This is fertile suffering.” This is what Christ did for us in the passion. He was willing to suffer, not knowing why, and dying that we might have new life. “Transformation cannot happen if we are not willing to walk the way of the cross.” We must walk, not only the way of the cross, but on our journey, we are fortunate enough to walk the way of with the cross with the One who bore our suffering and pain. The One who knows, and is compassionate, the One we come to know, the One in whom all is lost, yet all is found.