The Silver Lining of Pain

I had a migraine yesterday.  And the day before that.  And two days before that.  It is just something that happens every spring and fall as high and low pressure systems flirt and scurry across the weather map.  

Or maybe it is various and sundry allergens waking up to throw a party over the change of seasons. 

Whatever the cause, my head responds with fireworks.  Some headaches I can work around.  Some fold me into bed.  All of them change me from a "high-functioning, productive, clear-headed individual" to a darker, older version of Luna Lovegood, drifting about in my own personal fog. 

So yesterday, as often happens in the midst of a serious headache, I caught myself fixating on a small scene of no significance.  It happened to be a bright yellow leaf beside my patio, caught in a patch of deep, green grass. 

In that moment, that little leaf was the most captivating wonder in the world.  It blazed in impossible brightness, shining in gold and green brilliance at the end of a long tunnel of pain, and I was mesmerized.  

Stupefied. 

Captivated by every tiny vein and every shining blade.  
Tiny trails left by a passing insect intersected like sliver threads on the surface of the leaf.  Its lacy edges lay in sharp relief against the startling verdure of late-growing grass, and I could not look away.  

I don't know how long I stood there.  I can't tell you what I had been doing before that or what I had hoped to do afterward.  (Time expands and collapses in strange ways when my head misfires.)  All I know is that the leaf suddenly assumed great importance and I was compelled to stand in awe of it for as long as it willed.  

And it willed me to wait until my wonder turned to worship of a God who is so lavish with beauty that it almost seems careless and wasteful.  

Who but me even noticed that a fragile masterpiece had fallen on the lawn?  

How many other works of art lay in the woods and fields around with no eyes there to see them and no mouth able to praise them to their Maker?  

How many days go by when I allow my good health and efficiency to blind me to a universe of such small wonders?

So what is the point?  We can't walk around and stare at rocks and trees and clouds all day.  (Some people tried that in the sixties and I believe most of those folks either burned out, died, or shook it off and went on became cynical and jaded college professors.)

Fine. You're right.  It is impossible to do the good work with which we've been entrusted and not overlook SOME of the marvels that surround us.

But if you are lucky, it will only be for a season, and one day you will find yourself caught by old age or infimity, and suddenly you will focus. 

And see.

The very young and the very old--and the very sick--are masters of the fine art of appreciation, and for this reason, I think their praise must hold a special place in God's heart, for they are the only ones who offer up the proper degree of admiration for bird feathers and seed pods and hot buttered toast.  

They hold an appropriate reverence for the ordinary, and see the astonishing vastness of small things.  

I remember my Grammi in her nineties sitting bundled up on my porch on a blue-sky day.  Her body and her mind held her in her chair, but little-man Jude was standing on chubby legs by her side, and they were laughing, their heads thrown back as Grammi pointed out shapes in the clouds. 

Later on, they watched squirrels do circles on the black walnut trunk and ate pretzels. 

"Oh!  So good," she would say with every bite, "I love the crunch!" And Jude would mimic her enthusiasm.  

Their work was the business of appreciation.  

It was all Grammi could do anymore, and it was all Jude had yet learned how to do, so together they were a perfect symphony of praise--their hearts so fully engaged in the task that they forgot to notice their lack of "productivity" and "usefulness".

Thank God.  

Those relentless engines are the idols of our age, to the point where we have prominent public figures pontificating about (and urging us to consider?) "Why I Hope to Die at 75".  

It is poverty in the name of progress.  

Emptiness in the name of enlightenment.

We have exchanged the beauty of diversity--of age, of ability, of interests, of giftings, of stage of life--for the gray tedium of sameness.


In other words, "Give me drone-like efficiency or give me death!"

Now, I do not love migraines.  I would probably choose to never have another one if I could, but I do not regret the acute stillness that comes alongside acute pain because it hones my perceptions into a single, sharp, focused point of clarity--and holds me there until worship finds me.

I do not regret the gratitude that springs up in me the morning after a pain-drenched day.

I do not regret the stripping of my pride over thinking I could push on, persevere, or pull myself up in my own strength.

I do not regret the seeds of empathy which have been sown in me.

I do not regret the longing for heaven which waxes stronger in me with every passing day.

More good than evil has come of this "curse".  Jamey says the same of his chronic arthritis pain.  

So if, by the time we are 75, we are required to shuffle off the planet with a pill and a pat on the head, I will weep, but not for myself.  

I will mourn for the pervasive poverty of spirit which cannot see that even in the shards of a sin-scarred world, good gifts remain.

And in them, and through them, the Good Giver keeps reaching out--because redemption has the last word, and beauty will rise.  

In the rare air of suffering, the promise endures.

Although we often see it in peeks and snatches  here, it will be born one day in fullness, in perfection.  

Bless the pain that gives us eyes to see it here. 

Bless the Sacrifice that will enable us to see it fully one day.

In Glory!

**********

2 Corinthians 4:7-18

   But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so

that the surpassing greatness of the power will be

of God and not from ourselves;  

We are afflicted  in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of  Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 

For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 

So death works in us, but life in you.

But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE 

I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also 

speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus 

will raise us also with Jesus and will present us 

with you.  

For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. 

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our

outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being 

renewed day by day. 

For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.