Suffering is not only a problem to be solved
it is a mystery to be endured.
~Flannery O'Connor~
Last week I wrote about suffering. Immediately I received a note from my ninety year-old "Mother" telling me of the tragic and sudden death of her 58 year old son a day later. I then received a note from a good friend who has endured years of Lupus and the multiple complications entailed in that disease as she faced her next surgery. This was followed by a note from another who is in his 11th year of battling Leukemia and the side effects not only of the disease but of the treatments. Suffering is the universal malady. No one is exempt.
For 40 years I have been a pastor in the church as well as a seminary professor of Theology. As a pastor I serve as a shepherd and minister to people in times of tremendous turmoil and the tumultuous circumstances called "life." I have made many hospital visits and prayed for those with intractable pain and anguish. I have consoled the dying and comforted the living. I have officiated at too many funerals to count, but every face is etched in my mind. I have counseled many parents regarding their children. I have talked people back from the edge of suicide and have sought to encourage those who feel their own faith slipping through their fingers as life circumstances have tightened their grip. They find the words of Blaise Pascal fitting for life: "I see too much to doubt and too little to be sure. I am of all men most to be pitied."
I have faced the ever present questions vocalized in a thousand ways - "Why is this happening to me?" "Is God really there?" "I do not know what to do anymore." "I'm not sure I can go on."
My personal life and professional ministry has not been immune from times of trial and testing. I have personally experienced the hurts of life in the extreme. I have felt the sting of betrayal from family and friends. I have experienced personally the consequences of the pollution of politics found even in "the ministry world." I am personally acquainted with the perplexing questions and ever present problems that life prompts this side of heaven.
And that is the key. We live on this side of heaven but there is another side of heaven. This reality is expressed by Joseph as he declared after bitter treatment by his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." (Genesis 50)
F.B. Myer reminds us; "It is in proportion as we seek God's will in the various events of life and surrender ourselves either to bear or do it, that we shall find earth's bitter circumstances becoming sweet and its hard things easy."
Serving Him with you
Until He comes for us,
Fred