the problem of pain: divine omnipotence

"try to exclude the possibilities of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself" (25)

would I rather be free or would I rather be shackled?

if I knew the outcome of my actions before the decision to go through with it, have I really given it any thought?

if everything is happy and everyone is happy then does happy hold any meaning?

there is a problem with pain and I haven't gotten that far in the book to answer that question intelligently, so let me respond from my flawed emotional heart.

my problem with pain is not that it's meaningless or serves no purpose, my problem is in its very nature of being absolutely necessary.

if I want to experience happiness, then I must know what sadness is.

if I want to know peace, then I must know chaos in just the same way.

if I want to taste joy, then I must taste suffering.

unless my little relationship poetry is wrong, what if these things aren't opposites and maybe more importantly, what if these things aren't exclusive?

let me complain about my thorn again, the robot pierced into my side. from it, I've been suffering in ways I feel so lonely in:

"are you allowed to eat that?"

let me stop there before I go on forever.

pain is lessened when it is shared, but I have an exclusive thorn given to me from the genetic lottery in which I have never volunteered to spin the wheel, which God has not yet let another receive. I am so lonely in this suffering, and it's okay if another cannot emphasize, please stay as far away from the fingerpricks, needles, and medications for I wish no one would go through the trials God has put me through.

I am not here to complain (again), but to reevaluate. because from my thorn I have missed the stem on which it is attached to, and from that stem is a flower, a display of "the grand scheme of things," the work of a Creator.

from this specific pain:

I have received humility, knowing that I am mortal and I am weak. and from humility I have dependence on God, and from dependence, I have a relationship.

I am being disciplined, to controlling my diet and medications and the little nuances of how wheat bread hits me 20 minutes after white bread, or how soda may as well be the diabetics elixer of life. and from discipline, comes health.

I am grateful, acknowledging the statistics that people like me live on average 10 years less than others, let me look for the little hints God has sprinkled in my life and let me cherish them with my whole heart until the day where I cannot cherish anything but the fullness of the Almighty.

I am maturing (slowly), seeing as how my weeping and lamenting can only get me so far, and with God, all things have already been made possible. not in miracles, but in realizing that I have legs that walk and arms that push, and with God, I have that choice to walk and push.

I have all these things, because of pain. I want to change my answer actually: the problem of pain is that pain has clouded my eyes from (this might not be the right word) the source of it all: all things, good or bad (to me), the pains and pleasures of life,

God.

pain is necessary because in this reality in which I am subject to, without it, I would have nothing else. if I did not have pain, there is no depth to myself, and if I do not have myself, then I am not alive.

curiously, the natural antagonist to life is death, but I do not need to experience death to live, because Christ died for me. and Christ took death and took Dominion over it, so now Jesus has turned the polarity of life and death into the harmony of Christ and life.

all in all, I'm alive.