The Holy Pain

I finished my 10 week divorce support group last night. It was very bitter sweet. It was great to be able to look at a specific individual and see how strong and wise they have become in the last couple months. On the other hand it was sad to say goodbye to the people I have cried with and shared my deepest fears and hurts with. I know I will see some of them again. Bonds like that don't just disappear.

Chris Miller is the man that was in charge of leading this support group. He is amazing. Incredibly wise and full of first hand knowledge of pain and recovery. He wrote an autobiographical book that I can't wait to start reading this weekend. It is called The Holy Pain. This is what it says on the back:

It is one of mankind's most urgent pursuits to find purpose in our pain. Hopelessness and despair springs not so much from the pain itself but from the lack of a reason behind it...the very futility of our suffering. It is this search for meaning that has spawned Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Amber Alert and thousands of legislative proposals and social organizations. What if, though, there was a purpose for our pain that goes beyond the temporal, beyond the here and now, to an eternal purpose that will endure beyond time and space?

C.S. Lewis stated, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." It is this purpose, how we can actively listen to God for the meaning in our pain, that Dr. Miller addresses in the book.