Yesterday I read a novel by William Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge.” IIt’s really a true story of his adventures in search of life’s meaning, after World War II trauma. It’s riveting I couldn’t put it down. The novel’s title comes from a translation of a verse in the Katha Upanishad, (Hindu) paraphrased in the book’s epigraph as: “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.
I believe that Someone paid the cost of salvation with his life. Thus for you and me, salvation is FREE. It’s the sanctification process that’s hard. If we want to change, we must face our fears, our shame, and our guilt, our weaknesses. It’s not easy to change our thought processes and behaviors. It’s an arduous journey. We’re doing so well then some tiny pebble gets in your way and you trip and fall on your face. And you wonder “how could I do that!” You get mad at yourself… you know how it goes. We’ve all been there. We promise ourselves to never trip by watching for pebbles, then a boulder is all of a sudden appear in your path… olekoi ♡
It’s a great read. Maucham described his childhood friend Sophie of her love of poetry in such loveliness: “Of course, it was imitative. There was a lot of Robert Frost in itl. But I have a notion it was rather remarkable for so young a girl. She had a delicate ear and a sense of rhythm. She had a feeling for the sounds and scents of the country, the first softness of spring in the air and the smell of the parched earth after rain.”
It made think. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Matthew 7:13-14 NIV
In this journey, he also met a Catholic monk who said to him, “Our wise old Church has discovered that if you will act as if you believed belief will be granted to you; if you pray with doubt, but pray with sincerity, your doubt will be dispelled; if you will surrender yourself to the beauty of that liturgy the power of which over the human spirit has been proved by the experience of the ages, peace will descend upon you…”
Trauma can either drive us to some mental disorder and we lose our minds or impel you to go search for the meaning of life. It’s in the journey that that we see things that we normally don’t see in life.
Jeremiah the Prophet was so hated. He was traumatized (persecuted) by the leaders in his day that made him run away. But GOD wouldn’t let him go. Jeremiah 30:12-17 “Why do you cry out over your wound, your pain that has no cure? Because of your great guilt and many sins I have done these things to you. “‘But all who devour you will be devoured; all your enemies will go into exile. Those who plunder you will be plundered; all who make spoil of you I will despoil.
But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the Lord, “because you are called an outcast, Zion (appointed) for whom no one cares.’
You’ll be fine in the.midst of pain because GOD is never far away.