A Few Thoughts about Joy & Pain
I find myself returning back, in my mind, to a question posed to me one day in Gospel Principles class. I don’t remember which lesson it was, I don’t remember the exact words of the question but I remember that generally speaking it was: “I know that opposition must be there but why must the righteous suffer so much?”
I know a lot about the doctrine of the church. I have been a student, a sincere disciple for most of my 33 years. I know that generally the primary answer to this question is something like this “Trials are for our good. Either that or you are being taught something so you can offer that new experience to someone else. Maybe in the near future maybe not”
I felt that the above answer wasn’t good enough. Not this time. I didn’t have more though. I had really not received revelation or studied about opposition much. I feel that I have had much of opposition even pain but I have always felt that these trials are nothing in Gods sight or that there was a larger design for all this. I also think its possible that the bad stuff that happens to my family could be a result of the few years of disobedience that I had in my life.
I want to address the last of these points first. My sins weren’t that bad, especially if you have a worldly view. If you are Bishop or have heard confessions you would probably think my sins are almost so small that they don’t need confession to authority but rather confession to Deity. My sins were serious but reasonably benin when taking in the worldly view. Not to justify myself but simply to point out that mankind has so many was of perverting good things that the places I have been are a veritable first base in babylon. There is much I don’t know.
I have often thought that The Church should speak more of Grace. When I worship and study the topic of Grace I find it to be all encompassing. While I was wallowing in the mire I felt that the scarlet I had experienced was beyond the scarlet that could be made white. Hindsight being what it is I realize God’s power and desire to forgive stretches farther that I would have thought while dripping with mud. I know Gods grace and I know it is good.
So is what I’m suffering in my life a damnation because of my prior actions? I know this question is posed my very many people who have fallen to their knees searching for a way out of the pain. My answer to them now after having pondered this subject for a couple years would go something like this: “Maybe but rather than focusing on the pain please allow yourself to realize that God loves you and is aware of what you are going through and he sees fit that you endure it now. If you seek diligently I know it will be revealed to you one day why exactly.”
I think there is a joy-pain continuum. Here is a definition:
continuum |kənˈtinyoōəm|
noun ( pl. -ua |-yoōə|) [usu. in sing. ]
a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct : at the fast end of the fast-slow continuum
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Mathematics the set of real numbers.
Remember the real number line in algebra class? I remember that it went from <-10 to 0 to 10> Now have you ever been to the hospital or the doctor where they ask you to describe your pain. 0 being no pain at all perfect state and 10 being the worst pain you have ever felt.
I remember thinking when I saw the hospital chart how difficult it would be to pick a number. I thought to myself “It really hurts and its the worst pain that I have ever felt but I know it could be worse” Then you can describe how many other bad things that clearly must hurt worse. Broken bones, multiple broken bones, crushed fingers in the door, gun shot, multiple gunshots, child birth. Any number of things must be worse but “help me, I’m hurting now, and I want the pain to go away!!”
What about emotional pain. How many of you have felt the empathy for the pioneers who trekked across the plains? 1000+ miles during weather, cold, rain etc. Imagine losing all of your children to sickness or exposure, what number would you assign that? What about the person who cant hear? or see? what number of “badness” would that be? Cerebral palsy? what pain number do you give that? Imagine then talk to someone who is dealing with one of them and ask them. Vastly different answer I bet huh?
What about paralysis brought about some kind of trauma? What about the athlete who was at the top of their game who becomes paralyzed? Some of them can only dream of running? How bad would that be? Now go talk to one of them, What about the girl who had her arm chewed off by a shark? what is she doing now?
The reason I say it this way is because it is all a matter of perspective. It can be much worse in our mind. Also having endured something previously thought terrible those individuals would yet fear something else worse.
So what purpose does pain play on happiness? I am going to now reveal something very deep (to me) very much something that I had to learn through the last couple years so don’t treat it lightly. I think each new level of suffering we endure somehow opens up a new possibility for joy. I don’t think the number on the continuum changes. I just think the “appreciation” for it changes. Its a pain-joy paradigm shift.
Pretty simple eh? I know but it took me a couple years to put it all together in my mind.
I think the appreciation part of it is the key. It reveals how its possible to love the same person more and more each day even when you can’t imagine loving someone deeper or more than before.
I think it also explains how pain can be a happy thing for us.
The other day I talked to my father-in-law about prosperity because he is currently a sincere student of prosperity. He is working hard in his business and in his relationships to attract prosperity in everything he does. I mentioned to him that I was wondering if poverty has a function towards happiness and he flatly disagreed. I think had I had the opportunity to explain my idea that when we are suffering a little tough times it might actually be good. It allows for many things. One it allows the materialistic to look towards heaven for happiness rather than to stuff. It allows for the poor to realize that each new low means that there will a new level of happy to look forward to and that there will be an end.
I really want to write it out even more but has helped to get it out at least this much.
I want to explore more the concept of opposition, more about how Joseph Smith, a man who communed with God himself, would be subject to such poverty pain and ultimately death even though he was worth to have angelic visits and ministering by Christ himself.