to the pain

Last weekend our pastor gave a sermon about this clip from The Princess Bride... and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.




To the pain.

A unique turn of phrase. We've all heard of the Prince's counter, "to the death" or "till death do us part." One in every three love songs is about a love worth dying for. Hollywood cashes in on the concept of death being the epitome of sacrifice from one person to the other (Titanic comes to mind... why didn't they just SHARE that stupid door Rose was floating on?).

But..."to the pain" is different.

Prince Humperdink is prepared to give his life in the duel; however, he is not prepared to fight to the pain... to suffer, to be disfigured, to be an outcast.

Death is an end. It's a scary end, most of the time... but still, if he dies, there is no further earthly consequence. It's his out.

But to the pain... that's terrifying.

And I feel like that's how a lot of us live our lives...

Marriage... Our vows say "till death" but we really mean until the death of the marriage... until it gets tough... until it's "to the pain..." Then we want out.

Children...same deal. We want babies... but somewhere along the line, when parenting becomes "to the pain"... we give up on them. Teachers do this, too. A lot of teachers do this especially. I know that as a high school teacher, a lot of times, it was easy to only stick with kids to the death and write them off before to the pain.

Relationships... I've lost lots of valuable friendships to the pain. Pride, fear, and insecurity kept me from pushing through the hard times and misunderstandings.

I don't want to live like that anymore.

I want to live life "to the pain."

I want to value people enough to not write them off. I want to persevere through the rough patches in marriage. I want Lilah to know that NO. MATTER. WHAT. her mother is in her corner... fighting with her to the pain.

Jesus lived this way.

Literally.

He still does.

My brain hurts from how much this makes me think.