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Be Happy! Day 7

Push past pain

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ Lamentations 3.19–24

As a teenager in the fourteenth century a woman who lived in Norfolk, whose name is long forgotten, successfully pleaded with her bishop to be allowed the honour of becoming an anchorite. This means that she was bricked up in a room, next to St Julian’s Church in Norwich, which she never left, in order to devote herself to a life of worship. There she lived, prayed and contemplated God until she was seventy. And wrote – she was the first woman to have a book published in the English language! Her cell is still there in Norwich, and visiting it is very moving.

Aged thirty, she had a life-threatening illness. In fact, she believed she was about to fall victim to the Black Death, which was devastating Europe. In intense pain, she had a series of visions of Jesus, during which profound truths about life became clear. When she recovered, she wrote them down in an unremittingly optimistic book called Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love. It is still in print today, under the name by which the world knows her – Julian of Norwich.

There is a slanted window in the wall of the cell, and through it you can squint into the church and fix your eyes (as she did) on the cross on the altar. Next to the window are written some of her words, composed at the height of her ill health: ‘These words, “You will not be overcome,” were said very insistently and strongly, for certainty and strength against every tribulation which may come. He did not say, “You will not be troubled, you will not be belaboured, you will not be disquieted,” but he said, “you will not be overcome.” God wants us to pay attention to these words and always to be strong in faithful trust, in well-being and in woe, for he loves and delights in us, and so he wishes us to love him and delight in him and trust greatly in him. And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well.’

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1.2–4

In the heart of the Old Testament is a set of poems that agonize over the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. In our Bible they have the name Lamentations. The poems grieve over the suffering of loved ones and the devastation wreaked on the walls of a beloved city. But they are desolate about something worse – God seemed to have abandoned his people. But at his low point the poet’s complete loss of hope acted as a trigger to bring him to his spiritual senses, as if despair left him nowhere else to go but to God. To recall that God is still sustaining life, and consciously to seek a reason to thank him daily, does not spring easily from the human heart. It is an act of will that only the grace of God can uphold.

Between agreeing to write this book and starting the first chapter, I had a shock that made me question whether I was the right person to write about happiness. The truth is that despite what you have read during the first week of this spiritual journey, it has been a rough old year.

It would be just another illusion to believe that reaching out to God will free us from pain and suffering. Often, indeed, it will take us where we would rather not go. But we know that without going there we will not find our life. Henri Nouwen, Dutch priest and writer, 1932–96

I was due to move house on a bitterly cold day in February. While the removal firm was loading my furniture on to the van I had a phone call from the solicitor. I assumed that it was to confirm that I could collect the key, but in fact the message was that the company from whom I was buying the flat had gone bankrupt, and the bank had seized all the properties. With the removal van taking my possessions into storage, and me on my mobile ringing round to find a place to sleep that night, I thought, ‘This is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life.’

Of course, with the sense of perspective I have now, I know that it wasn’t the worst thing that has happened to me. There have been bereavements and illnesses and crushing disappointments. But the pain of what we are experiencing at any one moment distorts our sense of what unhappiness really means. If we are truly honest, at its height our own toothache is worse than someone else’s cancer.

That night, lying in a strange bed unable to sleep, the bitterness, gall and downcast soul of Lamentations were reality.

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. Helen Keller, North American academic, deaf and blind from infancy, 1880–1968

But can I tell you something I’ve learnt? It is deeply and tangibly comforting to know that people are praying alongside and for you. As Christians we are community, not individuals. At one point someone told me what time that evening he was going to pray for me, and I set the alarm on my phone so that it reminded me. Knowing that all these people had their minds open to the mind of God, and that I was their subject, was transforming. Prayer mattered during those painful months more than I can ever recall.

Did prayer change things? I don’t know what to think about that. Yesterday it rained miserably on a church fete, even though people had prayed for sun. The truth is that I don’t believe a million people praying for it to be sunny would have stopped the rain. And I similarly don’t think that a million people praying for that firm not to go bust would have prevented the misery. And yet …

And yet! Halfway through the crisis I made my daily phone call to the solicitor, who said, ‘We are dealing with two financial problems. One is with Barclays Bank and that will be solved, although it will be slow. The other is with the Bank of Madagascar, which will be much more difficult.’

As you can imagine, that week God was bothered by my friends about the banks of Barclays and Madagascar more than at any time in history. Four days later, the solicitor spoke only about Barclays. I asked, ‘And what about the Bank of Madagascar?’ She replied, ‘That doesn’t appear to be a problem after all.’ It is completely typical of my experience of God that, just when I have decided how he operates and what the real value of prayer is, something takes me by surprise and I am forced to think again.

O Lord my God, help me recognize that every good thing in my life has been your gift, even when I am struggling through times of hardship. Amen.

In the middle of all that turmoil, which took weeks and weeks to conclude, I read the book of Lamentations. Like its writer, I asked, ‘Why is God putting me through this?’ My conclusion, naive and inadequate though it is, is that just as a test pilot pushes a plane to extremes – not to break it up, but to make its reliability complete – life’s difficulties give me a reason to cling closer to God.

I’m in the flat. It’s fine. Come and visit! This afternoon I screwed coat hooks into the wall, which is not quite as impressive as rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, but given my DIY skills ranks as an equivalent achievement. While you are imagining me bumbling over that, I want you to give some thought to this question: are you a happy person to whom unhappy things inevitably happen from time to time? Or is the basic context of your life unhappiness, in which joyful things periodically relieve the discontent?

This question is fundamental and I will revisit it over the course of this spiritual journey. It is vital because, to a very large degree, you can choose which of those is true. I’ll say that again: you can choose whether you are going to be happy.

It is my prayer for you that you will decide that you are a happy person, because once you have made that choice, the reality of it can follow. And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well.

Be happy! Will you be a happy person to whom unhappy things inevitably happen from time to time? Or will the basic context of your life be unhappiness, in which joyful things periodically relieve the discontent? You can choose.