Lo's Literary Life Lessons: Finding Truth in Fiction Sarah J Maas

Final Lesson: There is More to Life than Surviving

Lately I have been considering the nature of suffering. I doubt I’m the only one. Most christians I know think that our wellbeing is somehow correlated with faith. Some people believe that the more righteous a person; the more they give to the church and follow the ten commandments, the happier they will be. Others think that following God must involve personal sacrifice and thus the more faithful you are the more you will suffer. 

Both of these perspectives have biblical foundations. The Old Testament is full of stories where God punishes the unfaithful and rewards the righteous while the book of Job deeply considers why those who follow the rules still suffer. Jesus declares that his followers will have to bear their cross even as he says his yoke is easy and his burden light.

At different points in my own faith journey, I have agreed with both sides of this debate. I have tried to follow the rules in order to be happy. I have also been confronted with profound suffering that has no correlation to actions. I have seen evil prosper even as I watched good choices have just rewards. I’ve been accused of fatalism and false optimism in equal measure. I think many of us are wrestling with this right now. We see people suffer. We suffer ourselves. We try to make the best choices and still the world around us is busted and broken. 

What do we do in the face of these struggles? Well, if you are me, you read a book. 

One of my favorite authors is a woman named Sarah J Maas. My favorite of her works is a series called Throne of Glass. It follows an assassin named Celaena Sardothien as she confronts all varieties of evil in order to make the world a better place. The story begins with the assassin in a slave labor camp called Endovier. Though Celaena is released within a few chapters of the first volume, she bears the scars of her experiences both physically and emotionally for the entire series. They drive everything she does. 

From the very start, Celaena must endure. She fights in every way she knows how to stay alive in a world that is neither fair nor just. Midway through the series, our heroine meets a man named Rowan. Rowan has his own pains and struggles. He, too, simply moves from one task to the next, burdened by grief and fear. They are both survivors. For a while, that’s what their relationship is; a means to make it to the next step in their individual journeys. 

Now, I am a firm believer that we love books that are true, not necessarily non fiction, just true to our experiences as human beings. I currently feel trapped and exhausted. I am using every trick and skill I have ever possessed to make it through the next thing that comes up. Honestly, I think we are all desperately trying to get to the next day or week or month, maybe the next hour or ten minutes. We are in survival mode.

Back to our story. Over the course of many books, the relationship between our two characters grows. They become reluctant friends, then fighting partners, and eventually something deeper still. Their relationship is honest and caring. It is based on vulnerability alongside strength. Eventually, they fall in love. However, before they have all those wonderful romantic moments my sentimental heart loves so much our heroine explains what her relationship with Rowan has done for her. 

“You make me want to live, Rowan.” she says, “Not survive; not exist. Live.”

Every time I read this line I cannot help but recall the words of Jesus, “I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 

Jesus wants us to do more than survive; more than just exist. God’s intention when creating us is an abundant life full of love and joy, celebration and vitality. Sometimes I dwell so much on the brokenness of our world that I forget about the kingdom God is working tirelessly for. I forget that God wants me to smile and laugh. God wants me to live a life full of feasts and good health and friendship and love. When faced with the senseless and incomprehensible suffering around me I forget what God has done. Indeed I start to think God has abandoned me and those I love to suffer alone. 

Do you know why we ask ourselves the question of suffering? 

Because if we understand suffering we can stop it.

If I knew what thing I did to deserve the pain I wouldn’t do it anymore. If we knew how to stop history from repeating itself then we would. If righteousness is what is required to have a good life then I will be righteous. 

We try that for a little while but it doesn’t work. People still get sick. Wars break out. Relationships are rent apart. We are never righteous enough. We never make the right choices. History continues to repeat itself. 

Then our wonderings about suffering transform into rage at injustice and despair at the state of the world. We give up. We stop trying to make the right choices because they don’t matter anyway. The world will still be broken and the people we love will still suffer. When we become fatalistic things get even worse. Because even though the little we were doing didn’t stop all the pain or fix all the problems it still helped. 

When we despair we turn to absolutes. The question of suffering always comes down to one or the other; either we suffer because we deserve it or nothing we do matters. It can’t possibly be both. Because if it’s both then this life is going to be overwhelmingly difficult, too difficult for us to live. Nuance is for those with the time and energy to pick apart shades of grey. When we suffer we have neither time nor energy nor hope. We are reduced to only surviving; only existing. 

Do you know what makes Celaena Sardothien want to live? A relationship. A deep enduring bond with another person who is broken and beautiful in equal measure. 

Do you know what gives us the capacity to live abundant lives? A relationship. A deep enduring bond with a God who is working desperately for us long after we have given up on ourselves and our neighbor. 

Jesus says that he came so we might have life and have it abundantly. He arrived. He showed up. He checked into a 33 year stay on earth so that we wouldn’t be alone. So that we would know what it meant to be in relationship with the type of god who would come to us. Not just some divine all powerful being with the power to create worlds and breath life. Our relationship is with a god who cried when he was born. Who raged at injustice and loved his friends deeply. Who wept and bled and suffered alongside us. Jesus came to abide with us, came to dwell with us, so that God would know what it meant to be human and we would know that the God we are in a relationship with understands us. So that we could understand what God was willing to do in order to keep our connection viable.

 When it comes right down to it abundant life doesn’t have anything to do with our righteousness. Sometimes we do good stuff and great things come of it. We send cards and people feel loved. We wear a mask and it slows the spread of a virus. We spend Christmas apart and more of us make it to Easter. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try and how many rules we follow, things don’t get better. The best of us get cancer. The people who deserve a win hit wall. Those we love suffer in ways that we cannot understand or stop. Yet in the midst of all of this we still have abundant life.

Abundant life isn’t about righteousness. It’s about a relationship.

My absolute favorite part of every Sarah J Maas story isn’t the magic or the villains or the new worlds she introduces me to. It’s the relationships. It’s the growth. It’s an immortal faerie girl learning the value of her frail human heart. It’s a bloodthirsty witch who values brutality and ruthlessness seeing the value of love because her friends sacrifice themselves. It’s the High Lord of Night casting light on a darkened world even though everyone believes him evil. It’s a Fae male with the magic of death falling in love with a perfectly ordinary human woman. It’s that every time two people come together as friends or lovers the relationships don’t erase flaws or fix all their problems. There are risks involved in caring deeply. Together, these characters fight against evil because they care and because they have one another. 

The relationship we have with God doesn’t remove our scars. It doesn’t answer all our questions. Honestly, it brings us joy and sorrow in equal measure as we are asked to lift our cross and bear our yoke. It has good days and bad ones. It just doesn’t leave us to endure any of those days alone. It reminds us that all our righteousness comes from God’s Spirit in us. Likewise, all our failures are encompassed in the grace of our Creator. 

Listen up team, I know you are tired. I know you are sad. I know that the question of suffering weighs heavy on your heart. I know I am writing this a week before Thanksgiving 2020 and that for most of us this will be a lonely and anxious holiday season. I know the world is a mess. I know there are no easy answers. I know you don’t have the time or energy for nuance. I know you are just trying to survive. 

I am here to tell you that God wants you to live and to live abundantly. I am here to say that even though you don’t have the energy for it anymore; God does. God will not give up on you. God will not fail to show up, to come, to arrive and be present in this moment of despair and hopelessness. You are not alone. God is working tirelessly alongside you to ensure that your life is abundant. That your cries of grief transform into tears of joy. That your hunger for justice is fed with rich mercy. That the fear in your heart doesn’t overwhelm the faith nestled beside it.

I know it’s hard and I know it hurts. I know you are suffering. I know we are all suffering. I will never deny that. We just aren’t suffering alone. This battle just isn’t over yet. We have not been abandoned. We still have each other. We still have God. Please, don’t give up on that. Don’t give up on the story that God is working so desperately to write with us. Please, don’t just survive. Don’t just exist. Please, live. Live the life that God has called you to. The wild, compassionate, sacrificial, loving abundant life God brings to us every single day.