It is 1.30am and I have been awakened from my sleep. This is something that is taking place regularly these days. I wake up between the hours of 1.30am and 3am. So I picked up WM. Paul Young's book "Lies We Believe About God", Atria Paperback, 2017, author of "The Shack" and "Eve", which my daughter picked up for me at a giveaway event at a local bookstore over the weekend. It led me to write these posts. I have been saddened the past few days after receiving calls and messages from friends and readers about the pain and suffering they are going through. I felt helpless and prayed for them.
We have been made to believe that we should be doing something often quoting the saying "An idle mind is a devil's workshop" but it is in those moments of sitting doing nothing that we get to dismantle our thoughts, reflecting on our past actions and often regreting and wanting to correct the wrong, finish all unfinished business and return a clean slate. Man has manipulated and corrupted everything he has come into contact with, even the scriptures. We now have to look towards the skies for a fresh copy of the original text. Hence, the reason Agathiyar is asking us to connect with the Prapanjam that is him too.
I have often written that times are good and that the good Lord takes care of me and my family well. I guess that is the reason I have all the time to share stories and write this blog. Someone in pain wrote in to Paul Young, which he shared in his book, asking him, "If you were sitting in the pain right now, would you write the same?" Paul writes, "For every person who stands up and testifies to the wonder-working power of God's miraculous healing, there are ten who wonder why not me? Why did they not qualify, or what was so unworthy about them that they were passed over?"
Often I wish that everybody gets their grace and attention just as my family and I have. Did his grace come about and was made possible through and after we came to worship them? But if God is all love and compassionate, he should shower his love and compassion towards all alike, believer and atheist alike. He cannot be selective about who he loves and saves. We often envy another's good life, asking why it is not happening to us, too. But when tragedy strikes, we tend to thank god that we were not there or escaped the danger. When we stop being selective about what we want in life and welcome all that life has to offer, I guess we would be a complete person.
Paul writes in his other book, "Eve" that he "Wrestled with the question that rose from grave sites and empty chairs, from mosques and churches, prison cells and alleys, why didn't God protect me?" He writes, "Tattered faith and battered hearts lay broken in its wake. It demanded justice and begged for miracles that never came." As Paul wrote back to her, I too agree that their anger towards the institutions and faith, and belief is justified. Paul writes, "But this world is not all there is and death is not the definer or solution." Agathiyar often tells me that death is not the end, it is but the door to another journey. As for pain, he has taught me to endure it and see it as bliss or learn to brush it aside and ignore it at other times. I am trying. I still continue to write though in pain. Just as Paul replies, "If I could, I would fix it," the same goes for me when friends and readers write to me or call me up narrating their sorrows and pain. Finally, Paul writes, "Our pain and losses can blind us to the good that surrounds us, the grace that is constantly poured out and the life and light that push away the illusion of darkness."