My birthday is September 9th. Our nation’s most gripping and devastating tragedy for decades was on September 11th- today. I can’t remember what I received as a gift or where my birthday celebration took me one year ago. Thankfully I can remember where I was two days ago. However, no guarantee that I will remember even that in a few weeks. [I’ll blame my age.] But, I cannot get out of my mind the scenes of solemn horror on the faces of ash covered workers running through the streets of New York several years ago. I can’t remember my birthday cards from last year. But, I remember well the stories of people calling their loved ones for the last time- this several years ago in a place clear across the country of people I have never met.
Tragedy etches deep into our memories, experience and thus development as persons. Its marks are embedded much deeper than the felicitous experience with our favorite toys or past-time. In tragedy, time stands still. Cognitive processes yield to the total experience of gripping pain. That is what happens when tragedy strikes. And, oddly because of the powerful impact of tragedy, certain things are shaped through it that would never otherwise be shaped. Sometimes courage is born through tragedy. Sometimes a passion for justice turns into action, spurred on by tragic circumstances. Often-times love is expressed more deeply and with more profound meaning through tragedy than would otherwise be expressed. For me and many others, tragedy gives pause- time and occasion for us to reflect . It forces us to think deeply about who and what matters most to us. When we are forced to think about matters of great importance, we are more likely moved to address the people and matters of importance to us with deep conviction and passion.
No one likes tragedy. But, it is the avenue through which we are most signficantly impacted. It is no accident that the cross of Christ is not only the symbol of Christianity, but the crucifixion story itself etches our understanding of God’s love more than, say, the feeding of the five thousand or Jesus’ journey through Jericho or sermon on the mount. Our lives are changed by the former. Our hearts and minds are stirred by the latter.
We have faced our own lately. But, rising from the ashes or the pain or the haunting reminder of our limitations comes the privilege of experiencing God’s love and grace in even more powerful ways. In an odd way, for those who desire to see God in action, tragedy is simultaneously terrible and beneficial. Its marks are carved so deeply that we are unlikely to forget. But, it is not all that bad to remember the pain if in doing so we also have etched in our soul the love that penetrates profoundly, the grace that lifts miraculously and the mercy that lifts gently out of that pain. God wastes no opportunity, even ugliness, to make his mark deeper than tragedy itself can cut. Underneath the scar is an unexplainable peace.
If you or someone you know has experienced deep heart-ache, remind them that as profoundly as the pain feels, God’s healing response etches deeper into our lives than the pain ever could if we only let him.