Perspective

It's 5:09 a.m. and I am usually not awake at this hour. This has turned out to be an average night for this week, though thankfully, this has not been the average week. Josiah has finally fallen asleep next to his mom after enduring some seemingly significant pain caused by an ear infection, accompanied by a fairly aggressive cough and uncomfortable fever. The last few hours have crept by at a profoundly unhurried pace, and now that he is resting I can't seem to. 

Josiah's unfortunate evening has mirrored that of Ephraim's, his twin brother, from a couple nights ago. I am normally a very deep sleeper, undisturbed by would-be disturbances while slumbering. Something about the genuinely painful cry of your child has an unsettling effect though. It's easy to go through life and intellectually grasp that God loves me and wants good things for me as he does for all his children. It's a bit more elusive connecting with that reality emotionally. I think one of the great gifts of being a parent is that God sometimes invites you to experience, on a small scale, how he feels about you personally and all of his creation. In such moments, an affection and love that seems a bit fuzzy and incomprehensible starts to make sense. 

I was in bed tonight, Josiah snuggled tightly in, alternating between moaning, crying, coughing, and other expressions of pain and discomfort. We tried several different medicines for the several different problems and nothing seemed to work. Josiah, confused, thinking each time that mommy and daddy were going to make the pain go away, kept saying things like "my ear hurts" with a genuinely helpless whimper. He seemed to think that we should just be able to make it stop... and it didn't.

There is nothing worse than watching your young child endure pain and suffering that you can't seem to alleviate at any level, even as they look to you as the one who has the power to make it all go away. As a dad, you feel a little helpless (and tired) but all you can do is hold them and tell them you love them... tell them your sorry it hurts... maybe cry with them. 

 

Sometimes we parents think it's our responsibility to protect our children from pain. Sometimes, our children might think so to. But at the end of the day, we just can't. Pain is part of life. Suffering happens. I am reminded tonight that our part is to love our children through their painful experiences and do what we can to help them process those things appropriately, to cry with them and stay present as they walk it out.

But more than that, I am reminded how God does those things. Sometimes I feel like he is absent or detached from our pain and as we go through difficult situations we wonder where is God and why did he let this happen. We expect him to protect us from pain... from suffering. 

I know an ear infection seems pretty insignificant on paper, I guess that's the thing. It is painful to watch your son experience pain at any level. You sit there, wishing you take it away from him and upon yourself. 

There's that well-known verse in the book of John that says "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son..." This might sound sac religious, but I have often thought the idea that He gave his only Son was a bit of a copout. His Son was the one who endured the pain, not the Father. And it was the ultimate suffering. 

My wife, Betsy, was by my bedside 2 weeks ago in the emergency room as the a doctor stuck a catheter in me (I don't want to talk about it), part of the process of trying to relieve the pain of a kidney stone. I was in quite a bit of pain that night but I'll never forget the look in her eye when it was over. She was just looking at me, tears in her eyes, right there, clear evidence that she was enduring every ounce of pain I was plus a large dose of helplessness. When you love something deeply, their pain is your pain and their suffering is your suffering... usually accompanied by helplessness. God sent his only Son, and not unlike me, He probably wished he could take it all on himself, protect him from the pain. But pain usually produces something good, and when you come out on the other side, it looks something like resurrection.

I guess I was just meditating on this idea that love always allows you to feel in some way what another is feeling. I generally think of God's love as an deep but abstract affection, a desire to bless and things like that. But what it must feel like to be Him, intimately acquainted with the individual suffering of each person in a world full of suffering. What I feel for Josiah and his ear infection is real. How real must his feeling be for my pain, for your pain... for those who are living in poverty... those who live in isolation... those who have worldly wealth but are spiritually dead... those who have cancer... those who have been sexually abused... those who live in fear because of war all around them... those who are trafficked as products to be consumed... those with HIV/AIDS...

He feels all of it. Each one breaking his heart all by itself... imagine how much it must hurt to bear the totality of human suffering. To try grasping that brings clarity to the intensity with which scripture says he will be returning. Pain... suffering... tragic realities that dominate the human story. But only for now. I can't shake the thought of that day... when "the dwelling of God will be with men, and He will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away... I am making everything new."

Today, may we usher in glimpses of this future reality as we await his return to this world, to reclaim what has been lost, and remake that which has been stained. Today, may you see, experience and participate this new order of things and a new way of being.