So deep and piercing it produces monumental change to a human being. The human reaction surges to defiance.
I'm not addressing the enormous types of physical pain so many individuals endure in their lives because of sickness, injury, and all kinds of physical trauma to the body and hence to the mind.
I'm speaking of the gut-wrenching tragic kind of hurt often forced upon us by untimely losses, unexpected tragedies, personal affronts or attacks to us or those we love. All of them. Any of them.
The kind of soul-searing pain which turns a person away from the Father of our souls. The drenching sorrow which drowns a soul, taking them to the depths of a blackness they can't calculate or seemingly endure. And from that they decide no god exists. They associate the pain with evil, the evil with a god who would allow this torturous, incomprehensible, life-changing pain. No more will they assume the god of their vision is good or could love them. Otherwise this horrible thing wouldn't have happened. No. No more God.
What happens to us when we turn away from Him? From the promises He offers? When He tells us straight up: "In this world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have overcome the world." Trouble's one thing, but this? This isn't trouble! This is pain so deep you couldn't possibly care about me. Could. Not. Possibly.
Fainting, lashing out, writhing in the emotional suffocation of grilling pain. Loss. Horror. The inevitable shrieking of Why?! The indulgence of evil for payback!
No answer satisfies. No reasoning relates. No explanation placates. Nothing penetrates. The Pain.
One word. So sad. So huge. So small. So powerful. So meager. One word. The conclusion. The answer. The reason. The explanation. And yet it won't suffice. Until that leaden heart, the cast-iron structure housing the rebellion, the impenetrable lock is removed to usher in true understanding. Of that one word.
Sin.
Oh God, you know them. You weep with them. You wait. We are all weak and pathetic. Lack trust and truth. Rescue them, Jesus. Let them understand you know real pain. More than all of us. The greatest pain of all. Help them to open their eyes to your love and comfort. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.