*Every week I send a goofy email out to an e-list for my Christian fellowship. Since some of the stuff in them is somewhat funny, I thought it would be worth posting them on here. Note that names have been changed to preserve privacy.
Table of Contents
I. Penitence
II. Unlucky 13
III. Pain
IV. Apocalypse
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I. Penitence
Here we are, at the end of another semester. But for me, this is the beginning of the end. Next semester will be my last as a college student.
In light of all this I wanted to talk about these emails. I understand that I took something Ted did last year and made it a way to subject you all to my thoughts. There is a great deal of presumption in that and I don’t wish to burden the e-list anymore. So I wanted to let you all choose if you want me to continue by creating a poll. You can vote here from today until Saturday.
Regardless, this week marks the final email in the series.
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II. Unlucky 13
Father Time steals our days like a thief
There’s no price I wouldn’t pay to get some relief
St. John called it the dark night of the soul. Everything hits you all at once. I’ve been there, through suffering, depression and loss. I’ve been there.
Sometimes the only way forward is through pain. I was 18 years old, laying on my bed in a small, cold room. Bells play for weddings but they also play for funerals. And every story about two people coming together leaves out the broken-hearted suitor who didn’t win.
We all knew that when we signed up to follow Jesus that life would have its share of sufferings. Things like heartache, old age, and disaster remind us that life can be ugly. Eventually our bodies and minds will fall apart and we will die.
But perhaps dark moments can bring about something humble. Sometimes we end up at a place like Job where we dig up a piece of wisdom. Sometimes godly sorrow moves us to repentance. Sometimes God gives us a contemplative insight we would never have gotten any other way.
Augustine said: ”…What matters is the nature of the sufferer, not the nature of the sufferings. Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends. But the movement is identical.”
Even when you are ringed by ice, if you can move with steps (no matter how leaden) to a place of engagement with God, I think there is a way out.
And when we all come to face mortality as all men are doomed to do, remember the cry of that great Man on the cold, lonely hill:
My God, My God
Why have you forsaken me?
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III. Pain
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