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The older I get and the more people I meet, I get the chance to see increasingly, just how truly broken the world is. There is a lot of pain to go round. Then I think about all the stuff I have to deal with and how I still go on with life as though all is well and I ask myself, “What really is going on with the people I meet?” “What is the heart behind their smiles?” 

One of the best things in life for me is connecting with people intimately. And when I meet someone that is willing to bless me with his or her vulnerability over coffee or waffles, I am just wowed! I feel like asking, “Can I just hold you and cry with you please?” While I learn to rejoice with those who rejoice, connecting with those who mourn is just beautiful pain. There is something about ‘sharing in suffering’. There is indeed, a lot of pain to go round.

So what do we do with it? My first instinct is to escape from it. Given the rise in the rate of suicide, I could say that this response isn’t particular to just me. No! I am not saying there are many suicidal people moving about, but ‘escaping‘ can take different forms.

People think to themselves, “If I am ‘high‘ enough, I would forget about this problem… alcohol high, substance abuse high, adrenaline high, relationship high, sex high… anything to make me forget the pain, or at least make me feel good again.” Soon it is realized that what goes up comes back down, and the pain is still there. The brokenness, loneliness and depression are still intact.

After repeated cycles of that, we begin to look for something beyond us, some sort of spirituality. Christians will normally start from this point: ‘the Jesus high’. “If I can just get me some Jesus….” This is me! When people speak with me about their problems, I would often ask, in different paraphrases ‘How is your Christian life? Not that it is a wrong question per se, but it is usually an extension of the Jesus high mentality. ‘If you’ve got enough Jesus, you should be fine. You need to get you some more Jesus.’ Ultimately, the point is revisited where there is pain, loneliness, depression and the likes.

So is Jesus no longer doling out rest to the weary and heavy-laden? Has He run out of perfect peace? He did say he knows the surgical procedure for broken-hearts, right? Okay, get on with it then!

I am learning to have Him not as a substance, but as a person; not as a connect, but as a friend. I have learned that He takes that ‘sharing in the fellowship of suffering’ talk more seriously than I care to admit. I am learning that when He said ‘sharing in the fellowship of his suffering’, the suffering included mine. I am learning that, more than He wants to get me out of the painful situation, He wants to get me through it. Fellowship in pain; friendship in apparent absence, in tears. Growth lives here. Peace lives here. Intimacy lives here. Those ‘in the rain hugs’ that bring a sense of safety.

I met a lot of people this weekend and built so many friendships. Two people particularly caught my attention. I could tell they were each other’s best friend, and that they knew each other intimately. Their eyes and ears followed each other round the auditorium. I knew because I could be talking with him, and she, several feet away from where we were and with other people, would chip in a comment to our conversation. They couldn’t pass by each other without a backrub or some other sort of physical contact. Take my word for it, they were beautiful to observe, a beautiful married couple. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but one time she came to him and said “I am sorry, I feel like I let you down” and inched close towards him. Absolute gentleman that he is, he pulled her in for a warm hug and told her “Everything is okay”.

As I watched them and took trips down memory lane, I was glad because, not only was this very familiar, I had just observed an example of the relationship between Jesus and the church … and me. I keep playing that scene in my head, “I feel like I let you down”, “Everything is okay” and the embrace in the midst of everything that possibly wasn’t okay at the point, and think to myself ‘that is the real deal!’

It is in the ‘real’ that we find the peace and rest, not in the ‘high’.

Edited by: Editors at Large – Kenechukwu Nlem; editorsatlarge20@gmail.com