Doubt

Connor Gwin, “Things We Cannot Say,” Mockingbird (Mar. 20, 2019) [link] has a compelling take on silence, pain, and grace in the church. Any one of these would be worth your time, any two intriguing, but it is the combination which is compelling:

It is almost trite to say that people are hurting. We all know it intellectually. The truth is much more startling. A majority of people are in an incredible amount of pain (emotional, spiritual, physical). No one has it all together. In fact, most people are on the verge of falling apart. People are always in a crisis, coming out of a crisis, or heading into a crisis. This is one of the only things in life that we can guarantee to be true.

He goes on from there — you should, too.

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Sarah Willard, “New Things Coming On,” Blind Mule Blog (Mar. 20, 2019) [link] writes (beautifully, as always) about conflict and resolution, and how what we think of as resolution is too timid for what God is planning.

What kind of storyteller expects anyone to believe the kind of things we see in this life alone? The threads of his work aren’t tidy, and sometimes they can’t be followed and they break off in all the worst places, but in the end you see it secure and whole, and not the dishrag you imagined at all, but a tapestry filling the whole world, with every scene more beautiful than the last, where those of a cool unfriendliness meet over a hillside and listen to each other, where sad old things have passed away and you feel a pressure on your shoulders… for it’d really be wise, my friend, to sit down for the sight of all the new things coming on.

She also mentions a piece which she wrote recently for Chronic Joy, which is a blog for people who suffer chronic pain — “War Stories and White Fences” (Mar. 20, 2019) [link].

Both pieces are well worth your time.