R.A.D.I.C.A.L. Thoughts for R.A.D.I.C.A.L. Women
“… An individual needs suffering and misfortune: they compel the deepening of the inner life and generate a spiritual upsurge.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – The Gulag Archipelago
The Gulag Archipelago has become required reading in Russia these days. I’m both surprised and pleased. I think it will cause a new spiritual revival in Russia. This book, which I read while I was in the middle of trying to make sense of my midlife divorce, had a powerful affect on me. It is the account of one man’s victory over unbelievably horrible circumstances and his journey to a spiritual freedom and power that can only be achieved by suffering. None of us likes suffering. It’s challenging. It’s agonizing. It seems undeserved. But it is absolutely amazing how our suffering leads us to, as Solzhenitsyn puts it, “a deepening of the inner life and an amazing spiritual upsurge.” On this path of life, we all want the easy road, the pleasant walk, the journey of enough of everything. Most of us have been blessed with abundantly more than enough of everything. But the truth of the matter is, that fact often makes spiritual growth less likely. We are just too comfortable. We don’t have to really work our spiritual muscles because life is too easy. Well, a midlife divorce suddenly changes that. Life becomes more difficult than anything we have ever faced. But, for the first time in my life, I understand the apostle Paul’s advice to rejoice in your suffering. The world doesn’t understand that. But anyone who is eager for a deeper spiritual walk will learn that spiritual growth comes from suffering. I know I rebelled against the suffering and agony of midlife divorce. I railed against it and yelled and cried and complained about it. I hated it. But now, almost ten years past it, I understand that my divorce has been the seed of my greatest spiritual growth. It has been the catalyst for an incredibly deeper relationship with God and with others. Even though I wish I could have learned those lessons some other way, this was the way I was presented. We usually don’t get to choose our suffering. But the exhilarating part is that we do get to choose what we will do with it. Use your suffering to experience the amazingly beautiful and empowering work God wants to display in your life.
“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” Said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” John 9:1-3
