To Suffer is to Experience Change

In our Church History (part 1) class, Dr. Smith talked about the controversies that involved the nature of the Incarnation of Christ. There was one school of thought that said that Jesus was not truly God if he died on the Cross. To experience the pain of execution (or even birth for that matter) would render the changless God changeable. To suffer is to experience change.

In the past few years after experiencing tremendous pain, I have contemplated the effect that it has had on me. I have certainly found that some of the consequences of pain (not just of sin, but experiencing hurt) have not gone away. One would assume (or at least an American would) that one would deal with some pain in the moment of downfall, but that soon you would return to your old self. But I have found that some of these experience have left me altered, and I wonder if it would be a forever existence. The claim that Dr. Smith made in class, that the ancients have made, tend to point that you do end up forever changed.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I like the way that I've changed--or at least some of the ways in which I have changed. But it makes me curious about who I will become. So often we see people completely warped in their thought by the experience of pain and hurt--some for the better and some for the worst. Who will I become in response to suffering, especially if suffering is fundamental to the Gospel?