That higher dialogue is love.
When one loves, there is risk—risk of suffering, risk of loss, risk of rejection. But without this willingness to be wounded on the deepest of levels, there cannot be authentic relationship on the deepest of levels.
As C.S. Lewis once observed:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. … The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers … of love is Hell.”
So where am I in the potential pain of my daughter’s life—the pain that might come her way, and that might flow back to me because I chose to have her? The same place God is with my pain, and where God is with your pain, and where God is with all of the pain in this world.
Right by her side.
Caring, weeping and longing to hold her in my arms.
Just as God is longing to hold us. He reaches out to each person, by name. The Bible says, “The Lord is close to those whose hearts are breaking. … The good man does not escape all troubles—he has them too. But the Lord helps him in each and every one” (Psalm 34:18-20, LB). And those who have opened up their heart to God’s presence and comfort in the midst of their pain have found this to be true.
Some might say, “But why doesn’t God just wipe out all pain and suffering and evil?” Because in doing so, He would be wiping out all opportunity for authentic relationship. Free choice would be meaningless. But further, it would be cruel. If all evil were wiped out at midnight tonight, who among us would live to see the dawn.
I wouldn’t.
No, he endures the pain that comes with the love in order to redeem as many of us who are willing.
But that’s not all.
He’s invested Himself in the process of healing the wounds that have come from our choice by entering into the suffering process with us in order to lift us out of it. God Himself in human form came to earth in the person of Jesus and suffered. He knows about pain. He knows about rejection. He knows about hunger, injustice and cruelty—because he has experienced it.
First hand.
