Trying to make some sense out of life...

has been a very real struggle. Why all the pain, all the hardship? And not only for me, but the whole world is afflicted. But it seems that when I experience deep hardship myself, I look around and see the rest of the world experiencing similiar or worse things, and then I wander if there is any hope for things ever getting better.

Life is just as much unmitigated suffering as exuberant joy. A genuine feeling for life will show a person the deepest contrast between extreme happiness and extreme pain. It is only when we taste the lot of all, when we become involved deeply in world suffering, one in heart with the need of man, that we can win through to that vocation which is the calling of man, and which, therefore, can alone be joy.

That's by Eberhard Arnold from the bruderhof website. OK, so we need to taste the lot of all and become "deeply involved in world suffering" to enter our vocation which is the "calling of man." OK. Done. Now, just what is that vocation he is talking about? Let me go back and read more. Ah, this is good.

No one has felt men's suffering as Jesus did, and He it is who has penetrated to the root and disclosed the source of suffering.

Now that is a serious consolation!

Only a complete change of our nature—only the return of life to God—can free us from misery, suffering and ruin. The wrong of our life is both a personal wrong and a universal one. To recognize it as our own guilt and at the same time as the need of the whole world

But can a "complete change of our nature" really and truly "free us from misery?" Maybe complete and total misery, but it certainly does not seem to rule out periodic bouts of sharp pain. But when there is hope even in that pain, I guess that's not real misery, even though it sure feels like it sometimes.