Lessons in Suffering Part III

Finding Blessing in Suffering

After living most of my life out of drivenness, assertion and self-determination, these last months have taught me that the “strength of the Lord is made perfect in weakness”.?I would not experience this great transformation without this period of the greatest experience of weakness in my life.?Suffering transforms us in ways nothing else will.

The Beauty of Long Marriage

Forty-three years ago, my wife Janice said, “I do” and “till death do us part”.? It turns out she meant it!?I am not sure I would have made it through these last seven months without her love selfless daily support.?I love what Duke Professor Stanley Hauerwas says about marriage: “Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become ‘whole’ and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough, we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person. We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary problem is…learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.”

The Gift of Spiritual Friendship

Twelve years ago, I said to five friends: “I’m not sure I can keep living my life by myself."?I invited them on a journey of intentional, spiritual friendship. Almost every week since then, we have met for an hour to be vulnerable about our lives, to pray, and to hear what God has to say to us.?Anam Cara is the beautiful book written by John O’Donoghue about spiritual friendship where he reminds us:?“In everyone's life, there is great need for an Anam Cara , a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away and you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person's soul.” – We live in the shelter of each other.

The alternative of prayer

“We are given more than enough energy to transform ourselves every day, but we waste ninety-nine per cent of it on tensions, on emotional reactions unrelated to what is occurring, and on daydreaming and mental chatter. (The Wisdom of?the Enneagram, 348).? It turns out that talking to ourselves is our biggest curse. Every moment of every day we have the alternative of praying instead.?I can freshly attest that the alternative of praying is much better.

Ripening of at-one-ment?

In the dark quiet of November when all the well wishes had settled down, I found myself enveloped in silence.?At first, the dark was unnerving. Then I found these words in a powerful book.? “The key is to move from being a victim of thoughts (the commenting, chattering mind) to being their witness (the heart’s stillness) . . . What we have observed of fear can be observed of practically any struggle with afflictive thoughts and feelings. We must move from being a victim of these thoughts to being their witness. Typically, we spend many, many years being their victim. We are imprisoned by the chattering mind. Gradually we learn to distinguish the simple thought or emotion from the chatter, and we discover an inner stability that grows into the silence of God.” ― Martin Laird,?Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

These last seven months of affliction have been healing for me in body, mind and soul.?I still have 15 months of maintenance treatment remaining.?I plan to leave off engagement on these pages now.?I trust that these thoughts from my valley of suffering will be a help and blessing to others.

?Daryl

April 10, 2024