Reading about the life and death of Ted Kennedy this week makes us all think back to his brothers Robert and John and the tragedy of their deaths. When Jack was assassinated his brother Bobby took up reading the Greek dramatists and philosophers trying to understand more the mysteries of tragedy and injustice. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed Kennedy spoke that night without text or notes. He spoke from his heart and quoted from Aeschylus, his favorite Greek writer: "God whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."
It's hard to think of suffering that way -- but I believe it's true. God teaches through our hardship. The psalmist says that an acceptable sacrifice to God is a broken heart. It is often in the cracks of our brokenness that God's light can shine into our hearts and reveal to us things we never saw. We learn more from our failures than our successes.
Has that been true for you?
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Q: Has that been true for you?
ReplyDeleteA: Yes ~ painfully true.