On Life 63 – Be a Rock – January 31, 2015

   It is said that pain makes man stronger and wiser. Yet, who likes pain or pursues it? Everybody tries to evade pain. However, every man has to cross a bridge which I would like to call “the pain bridge”. Whoever crosses this bridge patiently due to a deeply-ingrained faith in his heart will realize that strength and wisdom are not physical attributes. Rather, they make you a strong person who is unshaken by troubles and tribulations.

   Pain strengthens you: for it purifies your life from myths and falsehoods. When you go through a painful experience, you learn a new value. Pain might reveal a weakness within man’s soul, or a falsehood in his life. It might as well expose dishonest people. The incidents man goes through make him evaluate his life and ideas, only to start treading moving forward with new strength and deeply.

   Also, through pain, man realizes his true strengths and weaknesses, which makes him humble. Moreover, when man gets to know his weaknesses, he sympathizes with the weak and supports them lovingly. Thus, pain restores man to his humanity and empathy.

   Patience is pain’s greatest lesson: for it gives him hope for a better future in which a new sun shines to annihilate darkness. Life is but a sunset and sunrise. With every sunset, one recalls that tomorrow will come with a new sun and renewed hope. Through patience, one learns strength and wisdom. In like manner pain teaches you patience, it tests the strength of your faith which defies all sorts of doubt that pop into your head and painful feelings that prick your heart. Mark that life is ephemeral. Neither happiness nor pain lasts. What does last us what you learn through experience.

   Thus, transform pain to a bridge that you cross to strength, wisdom, and maturity. Do not allow it to destroy you. Destroy it through your faith and confidence in God who does not want you to be miserable. Rather, He allows pain that we might learn what happiness cannot teach us.

   Here, I recall reposed Pope Shenouda III’s words, “Be strong in tribulation… Do not allow it to destroy you. Destroy it through your faith. When a bottle falls on a rock, it is broken, but the rock remains. So, be like a rock.”

General Bishop

Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center