Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, March 25, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I have friends who have lost children. They have told me that grief never goes away. It may lessen with time, but at any given moment, an innocent word or a scent or a sound can trigger a memory that brings the pain crashing back in as if it were fresh. From their stories, I have a hard time believing that their pain will somehow transform into anything like joy. There may be joy at certain memories, or they may take joy in the world in a different way as they heal, but grief is complicated and the very last thing I would ever think to do is to quote this verse (or others like it) to someone experiencing grief.
There are other kinds of pain that I know from experience can be transformed into incredible joy. I am a recovering food addict. In my early thirties I was miserable for a whole lot of reasons, many of them valid but I was incapable of handling them appropriately, and I tried to take the edge of my constant misery by ingesting large quantities of pizza, pasta, and ice cream. Which, of course, compounded my misery by making me 215 pounds and absolutely disgusted with my body, not to mention worried about my cardiac health (it’s a family thing). I ended up in recovery at 33 and in the next eighteen months I was a completely different person—not just a healthy weight, but recognizing that none of the circumstances of my life had changed, yet I was experiencing serenity and even joy in spite of them. As hard as it was to admit initially, I saw that I was the source of the majority of my pain, and my willingness to let God change me resulted in my pain turning to joy. So much so that I now happily share about my pain (as I am doing here) because I know it is a service to those who might still be suffering as I did. Transformation is possible. Joy is attainable. At least in this case.
Do I believe pain can be transformed into joy? Why or why not?
