Sins and Tragedies

One of the things I have discovered this year is that many people do not expect life to be difficult. I have discovered this as various hard things have happened to us and most people have reacted well up until a certain point. At this point (which varies from person to person), there is a kind of meltdown and the person can't hear anymore. So, I've learned to pace the amount I tell most people and only allow them to have part of the entire truth. Too much and then they can't really relate to me anymore because they can't deal with what is happening to us.

It is interesting that there seem to be borders to our sense of pain. There comes a point where it is too difficult and we say 'No more!' It is as though some pain is expected but beyond a point it is unreasonable and unfair. But pain is unfair - it warps our understanding and experience of life and often damages relationships.

But we have no rights to our happiness. We can't expect to have good lives just because we want them. We can't expect to avoid disappointment and pain just because we don't want them or don't think we can handle it. Bad things happen all the time and they don't just happen to people who deserve them. This is a broken, awful world, which may have glimmers of happiness for many people, at least some of the time, but has an awful lot of pain which breaks people's hearts and minds and at worst, destroys them. That is the world we inhabit.

It only makes sense to me because Jesus also inhabited this world. He felt it's (and therefore our) pain and cared enough about its state that he died for our sin which warped it into its present shape. He's the one who shows a way out of the pain because he took this burden on himself when he died for it. Only Jesus is big enough to make sense of the tragedy of life.