David teaches architectural engineering at a local high school. We graduated together and I spoke to him recently. However, he had changed. Unlike his reckless, anti-religious youth, David was now a believer. His broad smile and upbeat attitude said as much. But when I reached out to shake his hand, I had to use my left. . . because his right arm is missing.
I believe in cutting to the chase, so I asked him how he lost his arm. It was a machine shop accident on a massive lathe. In fact, he had pictures. Nothing graphic, thankfully, but enough to glimpse the horror of the event. His overalls had been caught in the lathe, his body was snared and he was flung about until co-workers turned off the machine. David ended up hanging, both arms spread, in a crucified position. His right arm had been twisted off. When the paramedics removed him, he recalled lying on the gurney looking up at his arm.
David’s rehab was grueling. His children were afraid to approach the one-armed man, and his rage over the incident nearly drove his wife to a divorce. But somewhere along the way, David found God and his life was completely transformed. Now, he is financially well-off, independent, happily married, rides sand buggies on the weekend, fishes with a special harness and leads a weekly Bible study with a paraplegic man.
Counterpoint: Jimmy.
David and I both knew Jimmy. We partied together, graduated the same time, and maintained our cavalier lifestyles well after high school. But, like David, Jimmy was in a machine shop accident. The outcome was far different.
The details of Jimmy’s accident are horrific — far too graphic to discuss here. It left his face permanently disfigured. Despite the prayers and the witness of numerous Christians, Jimmy descended into a life of drugs and depression. I learned David talked to him during this time, shared his experience and spoke of Christ. But Jimmy continued to slide.
He started a meth lab in his garage and became one of the biggest dealers in town. But because he never went out, he amassed tens of thousands of dollars. Till one day, the volatile components exploded, and Jimmy suffered massive burns about his face and upper torso. Within a week, he died in ICU. I attended his funeral, mute with fear and wonder.
David and Jimmy. Both victims of terrible suffering, they reached a crossroad.
Why does God allow such horrors? I don’t get it. To this day, my friends’ stories are bookends, polar opposites, reminders of the fragility of life, the mystery, and our need for God in the midst.
Perhaps the question in this world is not IF we will suffer, but if we will we suffer with or without God.
I believe suffering is the greatest obstacle of the Christian faith. Why doesn’t God intervene?
There is no easy answer.
When I was 3 yrs old, my dad pulled into a gas station. (everything was full-serve back then) The attendant lit a cigarette and the gas ignited. Moments later the entire truck was engulfed in flames. I received 1st and 2nd degree burns over most of my body. My mother died at the hospital, my father had third degree burns on 90% of his legs, my sister had burns on her face that required several surgeries. I still remember the pain of the burnt skin being scrubbed off my body.
I never thought “Why did God let it happen?” I don’t know why. When I do think about it, I think ‘Did God really want us to dig deep into the earth, process a black goo into refined gasoline and build engines that worked with small explosions and drive them while sitting a tank containing 18+ gallons of highly flammable man-made liquid?’ Did he also intend for us to invent cigarettes?
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I never blamed God for my suffering. But when I see others suffer, I do wonder and inevitably I ask Why?
When I read about the droughts in Africa or see the pictures of people (especially children) and animals suffering, I do ask – Why doesn’t God send a little rain?
I think I have a semblance of an answer, but it would take too long and probably sound incomplete to those who suffer.
There is no easy answer. But for me, I chose to suffer with God.
yes. there is pain. there is suffering. in this world. and there will be more.
i don’t understand, either.
the bookends … i don’t understand that, either.
a very close friend of many years went thru the exact same thing with her husband and divorce as i … but she flipped and has turned from God … has four children ages 17, 14, 11, and 8. she goes out on the weekends she doesn’t have them and dresses for what she wants and gets it – she’s beautiful and has a beautiful body … now shared with countless men … to get back at her husband for sleeping with prostitutes … her ex who is now with another woman and not giving her another thought. her 17 year old moved out and won’t have anything to do with her – lives with her dad. the 14 year old spends all time, days and nights, with friends – not with mom or dad. the 11 year old is a computer guru; they let him stay on the computer all hours of the day and night in chat rooms, etc, and lives in detention at school; a brilliant kid. the 8 year old i haven’t heard about in a long time. i called her on stuff quite some time ago, and she cut me off.
this life we’ve been thru – it sucks. her parents were abusive like mine; her husband abusive and addicted to porn like mine. both in the same church, bible studies, etc. and she has totally flipped.
why would i be walking thru this with God and she not? i don’t know. walking through life with someone as close as a sister walking through the same events on a different path is heartbreaking.
it’s a place i can get lost inside my mind, sometimes.
i know God gives us freedom to choose. but the pain our choices inflict on others is insurmountable and i am incapable of dealing with it all. it’s too much. how God does is beyond me; but then . . . He’s God.
Gosh, dayle and Ame, thanks for your words. Seeing what folks like you, and my friend David in the entry above, have endured and still follow God, is moving. Humbling. I suppose it is a bit arrogant to assume we’re entitled to know / understand everything. I do know that God has not left us, that He weeps with those who weep, and His heart breaks over our pain. The cross is evidence that we do not suffer alone.
how can you even begin to comment on such things. God gave me such empathy; i just weep around hurting people.
but it is refreshing to come to a blog of a person I know loves God and yet ask the honest questions. I always ask, “why couldn’t God have made marriage easier?” I mean He could have. He really could have. The way it is, people can do the “right” thing and still be so miserable. What I’m talking about isn’t missing arm or burned by gasoline kind of stuff, but it still makes me wonder.
Then I watch the news and see the tragic ending for that 18 year old Kansas girl who was kidnapped at Target and found in a lake. Why? Then I say, “Jesus just come back. Please come back.” Life is just hard.
Ack. Now I’m bawling on my keyboard.
I know that this might sound weird, but I think that suffering is one of the greatests gifts God gives us. It’s only through suffering, that we truly understand what it means to be abandoned to Him. It isn’t “if” we will suffer, it’s “when” we suffer. It’s horrible to be in the midst of it, and we’ve all had our share. But it is a gift in disguise that brings a deeper relationship with God, contentment, joy and peace for those that believe.
Janet – twice in Target i have been uncomfortable – the first time i reported it and they told me they had been watching the man on survellience for quite some time – made me feel better. the second time i left at closing and a man had been around me too much, so i had the manager walk me out to my car. he thanked me and assured me they’d watch him. very scary. there is just no safe place. and my neighbors let their little ones run the neighborhood – young – under first grade – i’ve had to send them home and ask permission to be in my yard and/or house – they thought that strange.
Suzan – my counselor told me once, “Sometimes I almost envy those who have been sexually abused as you have because you develop a deep, intimate relationship with God that the rest of us will never have.” he didn’t mean that for anything but what it was … and he hated that any of us had experienced what we had. but God also gave him eyes to see what most never do. he was a great gift.
Ame, I hear ya. I have 3 girls- 6, 8, and 16. That kind of stuff on the news makes me sick to the core. I was so glad they caught that man, but looking at him upset me too. What happened to him to make him do such a thing?
I do believe God uses suffering to grow us. Like if I got cancer or my house burned down or my husband lost his job… I can see how we would learn and grow. But a girl brutally murdered? It’s hard… no, it’s impossible, to comprehend.
I know you are all familiar with the following passage, it does provide us a glimpse of God’s purpose of allowing the inevitable “when” that Susan mentions.
James 1: 2-4 (Amp) Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.
Obviously the book of Job probably provides the other “best” example of God’s providence in difficult circumstances. In my reading and studying Job (in consideration with Prov. 16:4 and other scriptures) I have learned that because God knows our hearts, He will allow circumstances that cause us to choose who and what we will follow. Doesn’t that line up with the previous passage from James?
I’m sorry that Jimmy did not choose the way the Lord obviously desired (He desires that no man should perish).
I would venture that each of us has come to the place, possibly more than once, where we have had to decide whether we were going to trust and believe God for Who He said He is, or turn our backs and walk away. Do those times not cause our faith to be deepened? Perhaps just as much as for the one that chooses not to believe for their hearts to potentially be hardened even as was Pharoah’s?
A song by Aaron Shust starts out with the following lines, “I am not skilled to understand, what God has willed, what God has planned. I only know at His right hand, stands one who is my saviour.”
Mike, maybe one day God will show us why. Maybe when we stand before Him, He will allow us to ask why and then provide us with answers that exemplify the exceedingly great depth of His knowledge and His ways. Until then, we who lack wisdom may ask of God for it (James 1:5).
Nope… no easy answers. Just having to learn to trust God with our every care and circumstance whether we like it or not.
Sorry to be so long-winded.
Peace to you all.