Sufferstanding

So as I am sitting in a West Virginian Allergist office waiting room listening to a little girl talk about virtual pets, I find many thoughts going through my head that I feel like sharing. However, if I write them all at one time I feel that they will be all over the place and terribly unorganized. So I will break them up into three individual blog posts for ease of understanding.

And so it begins.



As many of you know, I find myself captivated by the beautiful emotional musical stylings of Damien Rice. The raw emotion exudes reality and shows the pain of the human soul. After listening to much of his music, you find yourself both burdened and absolved of your burdens and pains. It is a difficult thing to describe, but it is truly beautiful to hear his suffering and sadness put forth into song.

Since it is such a difficult thing do describe, it would make sense that it is difficult to understand why it is so appealing to us. Or should I say me. In talking to others, it is apparent to me that not everyone enjoys this raw emotion. Many people find the emotion and suffering of the music depressing and comfortless. This is totally not what I was originally intending to talk about so I’ll just switch gears into what I was thinking first.

What do I know about suffering? Who am I to pretend that I understand it? I mean, I live in America. I have shoes. I have loving parents. I have living parents. Who am I to complain when things don’t go my way? I don’t deserve to say that I am in pain when the One whom I absolutely adore and the One who absolutely adores me went through more pain than I will ever know. I mean, he suffered all kinds of humiliation, pain, death, and worst of all, a time of separation from his Father. I can’t imagine anything more painful and full of suffering than that. Imagine the kind of music that Jesus could have written during that time of separation. Not to mention the kind of suffering that we put him through everytime we screw up his plan. Every time we don’t do what He wants for us, we put him through pain. Why would we willfully put a God who is so full of love and joy through pain and suffering? I write this terribly disorganized and confusing post to encourage you to press on toward the goal and not put the God of love and joy through pain and suffering. Live your life in a way that the rocks will not need to cry out in praise because you won’t.

Thanks for reading.

I'll put the others up later tonight.