Surviving the First Shock…

In any loss or injury or illness or accident, the first sharpness of pain, the first fear, the first disappointment, the first sense of sorrow, may seem almost unbearable. But mercifully, in the case of physical injury, usually the first sharpness subsides enough at least to be bearable. And mercifully, this is true to some extent in other things also. Time even a little time tends to dull the edge of anguish, and the things we thought we couldn’t learn to live with (or learn to live without) when we have to, we do somehow learn to live with (or without).

Seneca had some things to say on this subject some twenty centuries ago: “No one could endure adversity,” he said, “if while it continued, it kept the same violence that its first blow had…No state is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find in it some consolation…It is possible to soften what is hard, to widen what is narrow, and burdens will press less heavily upon those who bear them skillfully.”

The shock, the fear, the first sharp pain, the sudden sorrow, do soften somewhat as time takes over. And in any case, we can’t afford to assume that anything which, for the moment, is unalterable, is unbearable. We all have to learn to live with some unwanted circumstances and situations but blessedly, with faith and work and patience, purposeful waiting, the first acuteness does subside, and we learn to adjust our lives to our losses, to our disappointments, to our failures and frustrations.

To repeat the sentence from Seneca: “No one could endure adversity if while it continued, it kept the same violence that its first blows had.” And we may well be grateful for faith in an everlasting plan and purpose, for faith in compensation and in an ultimate, just judgment and for time that dulls the edge of shocks and sorrows, even when it doesn’t undo them.