“I haven’t always
been a single man.”
—
Weddings, Parties, Anything, Father’s
Day
Excruciating and never-ending. That’s two ways I’d describe the experience of
a regular grief I’d feel every time I’d take my girls back home. Back to being
alone again, without the ones I most loved, in a situation that I hated, was agonising
and it lasted years. There was hardly anything that could shift the spiritual
lament that came over me for a day or two hence each time.
And, yet, I haven’t
felt that way in a long time now. With the girls having all but grown up, and
having married again, there is now a new season.
It was the playing
of the (“every Saturday it’s...) Father’s Day” song that sparked my memory for
what life was like – for a few years.
I’m thankful for it
now – that experience: the lonely exercise of forced singleness. I know God
used such a hard and long-lasting thing to teach me what I could learn no other
way.
I do not wish to
sound glib. I do not want to patronise you who are facing this nemesis of
loneliness – the single father or mother, among many who find themselves forced
into their singleness; an extended period of great pain.
Even during these
periods of anguish I could begin to appreciate that God was teaching me
something I couldn’t learn any other way.
I took heart in
that; my pain had a purpose, in that it was repetitive, and I would therefore
not ever consider it insignificant. The anguish would change me; for the
better. And I desired change. I was sick of the old me that landed me in this
mess to begin with. And only I could say such a thing about myself.
As I entered into
these sullen recesses of depression, God’s voice in me – his Spirit – beckoned me
to search the things that might help. I read spiritual materials, including my
Bible, I walked, I talked with God, I begged and cried, and... eventually... I
learned.
My loneliest times
taught me what even God could not teach me otherwise. I learned the value of
learning is kindled in the crucible of agony. Learning about God, life, truth,
and love occurs most powerfully when we are in our deepest pain.
***
Pain is never a waste, for there is
no better teacher than pain. Her core subjects are Compassion, Kindness,
Gentleness, and Patience.
© 2015 S. J. Wickham.
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