Dealing With Pain

One of my biggest struggles over the past few years has been pain in the world. When you're exposed to massive natural disasters, enslaved children, corrupt government, and extreme poverty, you begin to feel pretty sick inside. You begin to realize how dark life is. Maybe you even go so far as to wonder how a loving God would allow all of this.

I don't know why God allows some things and not others. I don't know why some people are overcome by addiction and others carry on. I don't know why some children are sold and others are cared for. I don't know why some people are born into the third-world and others into the first-world. On this side of heaven, I will probably never have answers to these questions.

But here is what I do know, I know that each of us has an opportunity to act on the injustice we see. Especially if you are affluent enough to have the means to read a blog in the first place, you have more power than you will ever know; You have the power to buy fair-trade, to tell people of injustice, to fund worthy causes, to spend time volunteering for others.

This is the beauty of it all. When we are overwhelmed by the pain in this world, we can instead choose to be overwhelmed by the opportunities for good everywhere we go. Let's get excited, because all around us there are people who are hungry, naked, sick, and imprisoned... we have been given the beautiful opportunity of caring for those people.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’