The Pain Now...

So Mary posted such a painful, endearing story yesterday - which of course is a reminder that love is certainly something deeper and more complex than the kiss that wakes the princess. It's much more like Nicholas Cage says in Moonstruck , "Love don't make things nice - it ruins everything." It does.

It also reminds me of one of my favorite films- which was based on a similar story. The film is Shadowlands and the story is that of CS Lewis and Joy Davidman.

If you're not familiar with the tale - when he was in his fifties, CS Lewis began a correspondence with an American Author named Joy Davidman. They were correspondents, then friends, then they got married.

At the hospital, as she was being treated for cancer.

What I love about the film is the change in Lewis's character - what love does to him. Of course, Lewis was a well-known theologian, and at the beginning of the film, he thinks he knows why we feel pain. He learns, of course, that he had never really felt pain. Not yet.
I found this clip of scenes:



The Pain Now is Part of the Happiness Then. And That's the deal.

Joy Davidman passed away three years after their marriage.

I know, our vows usually make us say for "better or worse". There's a trick, of course - it's going to be both.We should be saying "for better AND worse". The great thing is that the better will always be with you when it's worse. And the worse will always help us prize the better.

If you haven't watched this film yet...
I mean - when you're in the right frame of mind. It'll gut you. But it'll also make you feel better.
-Pat