"We tend to quantify and compare suffering and loss. We talk about numbers killed, the length of time spent in the hospital, the severity of abuse, the degree of family dysfunction, the difficulty and inconvenience of illness, the complexity of details during a divorce…."
And we could add so many more qualifiers. Our minds seem to have no trouble comparing and sizing up one thing against another.
Sittser continues,
But I question whether experiences of such severe loss can be quantified and compared…What makes each loss so catastrophic is its devastating, cumulative, and irreversible nature…I talked with a woman whose husband was recently killed in a plane crash. I heard about three women who are battling breast cancer. I met with a couple whose daughter was the survivor of an automobile accident that took the life of a passenger. I heard about a man who has struggled with unemployment or professional frustration for many years now. I learned of a couple who have exhausted every medical option in their battle against infertility. I know of a man whose business is on the brink of bankruptcy…Everywhere there is pain, human misery, and tragedy.
Now I sit here crying over pain that I just read about in a book. I have been told that the more pain you endure the less tears you shed, the more devastating the pain has to be to affect you. I disagree. I feel like the more pain I experience the more emotional I become. These stories touch my heart. I relate to their pain. It hurts to be betrayed. It hurts to have your dreams die. It hurts to lose something you love. It hurts to watch your life as you pictured it slowly, or rapidly, crumble around you. It hurts to feel that you cannot succeed and every turn leads to more failure. Everywhere there is pain.
Sittser writes,
[Comparing loss] can lead to two unhealthy extremes. On the one hand, those coming out on the losing end of the comparison are deprived of the validation they need to identify and experience the loss for the bad thing it is… Their loss is dismissed as unworthy of attention and recognition. On the other hand, those coming out on the winning end convince themselves that no one has suffered as much as they have, that no one will ever understand… that no one can offer lasting help. .. So they indulge themselves with their pain and gain a strange kind of pleasure in their misery.
Each experience of loss is unique, each painful in its own way…The right question to ask is not, “Whose is worse?” It is to ask, “What meaning can be gained from suffering, and how can we grow through suffering?
Truly our Lord Jesus spoke truth when He said, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
I do not want to be known by the pain I’ve experienced. I do not want to wear it as a badge or medal won. How have I grown? How has Jesus overcome the world through me, through this trial?
I am reminded of a quote by Paul David Tripp in his book Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands,
God wants to raise up people filled with hope. True hope is not rooted in my achievements or assets, but in my knowledge that I am the child of the King. He loves me with a love that nothing can take away. He has given me his forgiving and empowering grace. He is daily changing and maturing me. He has promised to give me whatever I need to face what comes my way. And he has promised that I will live with him forever in a place without suffering, sorrow, or sin.. This means that in the most difficult moments of my life… what I really live for is safe and secure.
That is overcoming. I want to be a person of hope and comfort to others as we journey through this pain-filled world on our way to eternal glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment