"Love is the only evidence against us. It tells the world we're guilty of a change... (listen)" Hmm, I'm not sure if love will be used as evidence against me. But His mercies are new every morning...this is good.

The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis (1940) attempts to answer the question "why do bad things happen to people." Not, "why do bad things happen to GOOD people," because we know that none are good. This was my second time to read this book. I still have trouble grasping the point that Lewis tries to make on page 116 & 117. In this section, he is discussing the "unimaginable sum of human misery." He basically says that there is no such thing. If one person is feeling pain and another person is also feeling the same pain, each individual is still only conscious of their own pain. "There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it...The addition of a million fellow-sufferers add no more pain." Are you sure? If I love a person who is suffering, am I not conscious of their pain? And if I love two people who are both suffering, do I not feel even more pain? No, I don't feel their physical pain, but I think the pain is increased by the number of those who are conscious of it AND care. They'd have to both know and care, of course. Now, if two people are suffering the same thing together, their sharing in the same type of pain could actually make each individual's pain less. So, it seems to me, that an increase in suffering souls can either increase or decrease the sum of pain, but I can't comprehend how it would make no difference in the total. Sin might be like that. One sin holds the same punishment as 500 sins. It can't be measured or weighed. But pain...I'm just not sure.