If There Must Be Trouble, Let It Be in My Day
There is a part in C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength where one of the protagonists, Jane Studdock, fearfully comes to terms with the fact that she has found herself in the middle of a great and terrible conflict. Her reaction causes reflection every time I read it:
"It came over her with sickening clarity that the affair of her dreams, far from being ended, was only beginning. The bright, narrow little life which she had proposed to live was being irremediably broken into. Windows into huge, dark landscapes were opening on every side and she was powerless to shut them. It would drive her mad, she thought, to face it alone. The other alternative was to go back to Miss Ironwood. But that seemed to be only a way of going deeper into all this darkness. This Manor at St. Anne's—this 'kind of company'—was 'mixed up in it.' She didn't want to get drawn in. It was unfair. It wasn't as if she had asked much of life. All she wanted was to be left alone. And the thing was so preposterous! The sort of thing which, according to all the authorities she had hitherto accepted, could not really happen."
- That Hideous Strength, IV.V
I relate in that I often wish that I could just live a serene life, away from those huge, dark landscapes. Perhaps in a modest cottage in the middle of lush green fields. But alas, there are evils in the world to be contended with. I find, though, that there is something most fulfilling in embracing this reality without complaint, carrying out our duties so that our posterity may God-willing experience the quietude and peace that we long for.
"'If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;' and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty."
- Thomas Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine, Volume I