Every story centers around the literary device of tension, or a conflict which needs to be resolved. The reader is riveted by this dilemma, usually anticipating the just triumph of good over evil in the resolution of the tale. Much of the Bible contains stories of ordinary people who struggle through extraordinary events, providentially designed by God for both their own sanctification and for the edification of the saints-to-come who are to learn from their examples. The conflict and resolution of all these “Bible stories” also progressively unveils the grand, overarching story of God’s plan to glorify Himself in the promise, birth, life, death and victorious resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Each one of us lives our own story which is part of the sovereign plan of God, fitting perfectly into His great redemption plot and culminating in the ultimate happy ending, where justice is done and the righteous are rewarded. But our story would be nothing but twaddle without the right amount of conflict and tension. If those essential story elements are missing, then there is no need for the satisfying resolution, the time when the credits roll and you leap up to applaud the artistic merits of the creative genius who crafted the attention-grabbing drama.

I know that we all often wish we could just sit in the audience, or the easy chair, observing rather than participating in the action. Popcorn and soda are the opiate of the masses. Give me a quiet nook and a book, and I’ll happily observe the troubles of others from afar.

Until I fall down the rabbit hole.

None of us can avoid our role in the drama. We’d prefer a little more comedy and a little less tragedy, of course, but the tragedy is sometimes part of the script. I was reminded of this by a couple of things I read this week. First, literary editor Robert McCrum wrote a moving essay about how his perspective on suffering was forced to change when he had a stroke at the age of 42. He tells about the extent of his sudden disability:

Physically, I’d been poleaxed. My left leg was immobilised and my left arm hung from its socket like a dead rabbit. The left side of my face, which drooped badly for about a week, felt frozen, as if my dentist had just given it a massive Novocaine injection. I could not stand upright; my speech was slurred; every few hours a team of three nurses would turn me over in bed, as if I was a slow-cooking roast.

In place of pain, there was a hallucinatory sense of detachment, and I was also oppressed with an overwhelming fatigue. The smallest thing left me wanting to lie down and go to sleep; the muscles on my left side were so weak that to sit in a chair – which I wasn’t able to do, even with three nurses to help me, for some days – was exhausting.

Was anything working? Well, my mind was clear and my memory intact. Right-side strokes like mine don’t, characteristically, impair the memory or speech centres of the brain. At least my writing hand was working. Quite soon, I discovered I could balance a notebook on my knee and, with a pencil, scrawl notes about my experience in a big black notebook.

Mr. McCrumb found a new sense of compassion for others, and a realization about the loneliness of suffering. His disability, however, was nothing compared to the limitations of Christopher Nolan, a man with cerebral palsy who has been trapped in a helpless body since birth. Only able to type using what he calls a “unicorn stick” attached to his forehead, and only with someone supporting his chin, this man has painstakingly written a book of poetry, an award-winning autobiography, and a novel called The Banyan Tree which is supposed to be full of beautiful prose and unique language moments reminiscent of both James Joyce (ho hum) and Gerard Manley Hopkins (now you’re talkin’). I’m intrigued by the plot of Nolan’s novel (an elderly Irish woman tenaciously hanging onto her property and her hope that her prodigal son will return to claim it), but I’m more impressed by the idea of this man using millions of painstaking keystrokes with some loving hand holding his head for twelve years so that he could express the words which wanted to tumble out of the lucid mind imprisoned in his body.

Both Robert McCrum and Christopher Nolan live lives which revolve around stories, but their lives are also stories, working toward a resolution through conflicts which can either cripple their spirits as well as their bodies, or inspire them to fight for a sense of dignity and worth. Without a sense of our role in God’s eternal purpose, however, any conflict in our story will be tragic. Let’s play our own parts well and cheer on those who are on stage, giving their all in the performance of their lives.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. ~James 1:2-4