Into Every Life
On January 16, 1997 Ennis Cosby, son of Bill Cosby was murdered on a highway in California while changing a tire. That event was significant to me. Being a child of the 80's, I grew up watching The Cosby Show. Before that, I spent hours watching Saturday morning cartoons and Fat Albert. My dad had Bill Cosby albums and I remember listening to them with him as a kid. Bill Cosby was a moral hero to me.
I was living in New York City in 1997, and the news stations were overtaken with the sad story. t was then that I realized that no one is immune from pain. I had watched close friends face tragedy and overwhelming pain. I had watched people I deeply loved divorce, face betrayals, lose life dreams, lose children, lose homes, and face horrific circumstances no one should ever have to face.
ut oddly enough, it was Bill Cosby's public loss which drove the point of universal pain home for me. Theologians have sought to answer the problem of pain since probably our father Adam got kicked out of the garden. I won't repeat their efforts here.
I have just one point.
Pain produces either mercy or bitterness.
When I see the young and judgmental, or those who operate more in law than grace; when I see harshness in a person, when I see great judgementalness (which can manifest via gossip, or clique-ishness, or snobbery, or harsh preaching, or pointing out other's faults, or self-righteousness or any other number of ways); when I see this, I know the person is positioned for tremendous pain.
know because I've been all of those things. Many days, I still am. And pain has come, to break all of those things off of me. One purpose of pain is to create mercy and grace in an individual.
Whatever other purposes pain serves in our life, I want to cooperate with it. I want to allow pain to produce compassion and understanding and grace and mercy in my life. If pain makes me bitter, I will only be positioned for more pain.
I don’t know why Bill Cosby lost his son. Some pain is so great and so horrific that it can’t be explained this side of heaven. I only know that this seems to be true: Into every life . . . you know the rest.