The Second Week of Lent Begins

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to arouse a deaf world. —C.S. Lewis

Part of the ancient language of the spiritual life is purgation, or the purgative way. Our sorrows and our pains are supposedly good for us. They provide a kind of brushing up, a cleansing, a burnishing. In Scripture we hear a lot about the way we can be improved by adversity. Frankly, this concept may hang together theologically, but it is hard to accept when you are the one in adverse circumstances.

C.S. Lewis wrote books to answer his own most baffling questions. In The Problem of Pain he tries to decipher the meaning of pain, to reconcile the idea of a good God with the seemingly merciless character of pain. Pain, he suggests, is God's megaphone to arouse a deaf world.

Lewis represents himself, and each one of us, as being continually in conversation with God. God whispers in our pleasures. The things we most enjoy—food, drink, sex, music, celebration—are intimations of his love. The troubles arises when we separate those pleasures from God's scheme and try to own and dominate them ourselves.

Another way God speaks to us is in our consciences. When we have violated God's rules, our consciences (if they are well formed) will torment us. We feel guilty, ashamed of our own wrongdoing. We want to be made clean and whole again. Some apologists say that conscience, the moral law written in our hearts, is one of our principal clues to the nature and presence of God. God leads us in the way of salvation if we are willing to listen for the instructions God gives.

And then there is the way God speaks in our pain. Maybe this is the trickiest communication of all. But scientists confirm that pain mostly functions to protect us. Pain alerts us that something is wrong and must be attended to. This notion that pain may work for our good is hard to accept. But often it is the best explanation we can find.

Recently a friend of mine was told by his doctor that he needed to check himself into the hospital for a heart catheterization. "The doctor may decide to do a balloon angioplasty or stents," our friend explained, "in which case I'll have to stay over." Within forty-eight hours we heard that he had undergone triple bypass surgery, a major intervention.

He was weak, worn out, and exhausted by his ordeal, but beginning to see the brighter side. "The good news is there's no damage to my heart," he explained. But what I kept noticing was how hard he had tried to postpone the treatment ("Couldn't it wait a few weeks?"). Maybe God was shouting, but my friend was ill disposed to hear.

I myself have behaved in this exact way, deaf to the smaller signals of trouble and able to listen only when the alarms were percussive and loud. Toughing it out, ignoring the worst—maybe sometimes these are good character traits. But sometimes they are only a kind of disobedience and pride. Several years ago I found myself on a gurney in the emergency room in Santa Fe, struggling with a severe rheumatoid arthritis attack. How had I ignored the warning signs? How had I gotten into such a mess? The rheumatologist, when he finally arrived, spent much of his time scolding me. "Are you aware what a serious illness you have?" "Have you been underreporting your symptoms to your doctor at home?" Apparently he thought I had not been listening to that persistent megaphone.

So in the school of adversity we are brought up short; we repent; we are changed. In spite of our rebellious hearts, we become submissive, obedient, grateful. The God who whispers, speaks, and shouts is always at our side and on our side. But faith is needed to admit our need for God. Faith is needed to listen and hear God's counsel. Faith is needed to believe that God wants the best for us, even when trouble strikes. As the psalm says, "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you."

Excerpted from : Small Surrenders: A Lenten Journey by Emilie Griffin