Pain and Joy in the Shadowlands

Pain and Joy in the Shadowlands

Wisdom can be found in the most unexpected places. Take, for instance, this quote from William Goldman's classic adventure story The Princess Bride: "Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something." Buttercup's mother tells her this matter-of-factly when she loses her true love, Wesley.

Goldman is not the first to notice that life is a daily struggle. Everyone who has committed suicide knew only too well the pain of life. People who try to escape life through drugs and other mind-numbing processes are not willing to end their lives, while at the same time they don't wish them to continue. I am not the first to wish he could go to sleep forever. Life is ridden with pain and suffering, even for the Christian. What causes this pain?

The interesting dilemma is that the most pain is always caused by those people and things that are most dear to us. The closer something is to you, the more it hurts you. The human dilemma is whether or not to take the risk of loving, of attaching one's self to anything. To attach yourself is to set yourself up for a great deal of pain. To love is to risk great suffering. This leads us to wonder about Tennyson's famous words: "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all." Is this true? Should we love, though it break our hearts? Or should we stay aloof, not attach ourselves to anything, to avoid the pain?

This is man's struggle with pain. The Christian has an even more perplexing issue. Why does God permit pain? If Jesus came that we might have life more abundantly, and life is pain, why must Christians face more abundant pain? If the more we love, the more we hurt, why is the first commandment above all to love God and each other?

In the 1993 movie Shadowlands, C. S. Lewis is confronted with this problem. He had faced pain already by the point the movie begins. His mother had died when he was only 10 years old, depriving his life of security. His dad was so shaken by this loss that he was unable to handle his two boys. And then there is the other issue of Lewis' Christianity. A Christian feels and experiences greater pain because God is love and we share and feel His love, and thus His sorrow when people reject Him and choose their own downfalls despite His efforts to save them.

The movie made a point of mentioning several times Lewis' view of pain at this point. "We aren't meant to be happy, but to love. Pain is a megaphone to wake up a sleeping world." This view makes sense and proves true. God's command is to always love, not to pursue happiness. And pain does wake people up. Take, for instance, our country. Sluggish and fat, no pain for decades. Suddenly a lot of people die as one of the most important buildings in the nation is reduced to rubble. And the nation awakes! We can all think of examples of pain causing people to snap out of their doldrums and start thinking about what really matters.

But in Lewis' adult life there had been little in the way of serious suffering. His familiarity with pain was mainly academic. Pain was something he knew of, an acquaintance, but it was not a close companion.

All that was about to change. Lewis met Joy Davidman Gresham and a friendship burgeoned. Such a friendship, in fact, that Lewis ended up marrying her, but only to extend his British citizenship to her as a favor to a friend. According to the movie, she had read his writings and knew his views well, but finally when she met him discovered his lack of experience with what he knew so much about. In a confrontational scene, she frustratedly points this out to him, telling him that he has set himself up so that no one can touch him. He wins every debate, never looks foolish. He is intangible.

Lewis ponders this. The movie shows him discussing these issues with his brother Warren and with a former student of his. He apparently is still mulling it over in his head when Joy dramatically collapses. She was diagnosed with cancer of the bone, and was greatly suffering.

At this point Lewis faced a crucial turning point. He was beginning to admit to himself that he felt more than just friendship toward this woman he had legally married. She had no one to turn to as she suffered in the hospital, and thus he also felt a friend's responsibility to be there for her. He could not ignore her suffering, because he had allowed an attachment between them. Lewis here made the decision to love, even though it cost him dearly. He professed his love for her in the hospital, and they were married before God and not just the nation of England, even though Joy was dying and certain to have a short life.

Four months later, Joy was well! Miraculously, she had beaten the cancer, although it was only postponed. Lewis' biography describes this as the happiest time of Lewis' life. He continued daily to make the choice to love her, even though he knew it would hurt him all the more when he lost her, as he surely must.

Finally Joy decides to mention it to Lewis, knowing they could not continue to ignore that she is dying. Lewis did not want to think about it, as no one would, and people are extremely good at ignoring that which they do not want to think about. But she finally brought it up, saying that she was dying and their happiness could not continue forever. They discussed pain once more, and Joy said something which I believe to be incredibly profound: "The pain then can be part of the happiness now." Meaning the knowledge of the future suffering can make the present joy even sweeter, so savor the moment of happiness. Lewis chose to agree with this view, in that he allowed himself to continue to fall more deeply in love with Joy, and to care for her more and more, enjoying her and her companionship. The movie depicted him as still ignoring the impending grief, in that he was unready and unwilling to let her go. But finally she got very ill again. And finally, after a period of intense suffering on all parts, yet still enjoying each other's company, she died. He was forced to face the unbearable and let her go.

By this point Lewis had become much more intimate with pain. Pain was no longer just something he knew all about in his head, it was something that was a part of his life, he had felt it deeply in his heart. And still, somehow, he believed in God. Admittedly, he was angry with God for taking Joy away, but he never stopped believing God. The pain now was part of the happiness then, he knew it had to come.

The movie did a good job of depicting both the joy and the grief. Such is the delight of two people in love with each other, and such is the anguish of losing the one most dear to you. The Lewis at the end of the movie was a man acquainted with grief and loss, and yet a man who also knew joy. A man who chose to love though it cost him dearly, a man of sorrows.

So how are we to view pain?

Another man of sorrows chose to love though it cost him everything. Jesus Christ gave up his heavenly throne, lived on earth, and felt the sorrow of the world. The climactic end of his life found betrayal, loss of all who are dear to him, loss of his own Heavenly Father, and then to top it off, the sins, woes, illnesses, griefs, and burdens of the entire world placed on him. And yet Jesus chose to love, to embrace the pain of ultimate suffering and ultimate loss, knowing that it would result in the salvation of every man who accepted the gift. Jesus did not run from pain or attempt to prevent it. He prayed "Father, if it is Thy will, take this cup from me." But God's will was for Him to drink the cup, and He obeyed. For C. S. Lewis, his future pain was part of his present happiness. For Jesus, his future happiness was part of his present pain.

Pain and happiness are found to have their meeting point in love. If you have ever been in love, you know that for every time you laugh, you cry just as hard. The deeper you are in love, the greater your joy and the greater your sorrow. And God is love. He has felt both joy and sorrow more deeply than we can understand.

Life is full of hills and valleys. Jesus came that we might have life more abundantly, meaning that our hills will be higher and our valleys lower. As Christians, we will both laugh more deeply and cry more deeply than those who do not know Christ's love. How are we to deal with pain? Embrace it when it comes, and do not be so afraid of it that you refuse to love.