Florida has some strange weather.  As a teenager in Tampa I remember looking out the front door to sunshine and warm breezes, then out the backdoor to rain.  Honestly--raining in the backyard and sunshine in the front.  At our place now we can look up to the gate and see rain while the garden is still wilting in the sun. 

              I thought about that recently when Lucas told us how his little strip of land two blocks from the beach seemed to be a dividing point in weather systems as they passed through the panhandle from the west.  He could walk outside and look south to sunny blue skies, puffy cotton ball clouds and palm trees waving in the sea breeze.  Yet if he looked north, he saw billowing black clouds lit up by lightning that occasionally streaked its way to the ground.  Take your choice of weather:  look north or look south; go out the front door or go out the back.

              Which reminds me about the essential truth of happiness:  it’s a choice you make regardless of the conditions you find yourself in.  “I have learned in whatever state I am in to be content,” Paul says in Phil 4:11.  The disciples rejoiced that they were “counted worthy to suffer,” Acts 5:41.  If that doesn’t prove that happiness is a choice, what can?

              That doesn’t mean I can face every day with a smile—I haven’t gotten there yet.  But it does mean that when I am not in a good mood, I understand it’s up to me to change myself not my circumstances.  “I can do all things through him who strengthens me;” that old timeworn citation immediately follows Paul’s assertion that contentment is a learned behavior.  He understands that although happiness may be a choice, it isn’t always an easy one—it takes some help to manage when the outward man must face pain or illness or persecution or other suffering, whether physical or mental.  If it takes the help of Christ, it must be a difficult task.

              But it can be done, and while the doing may be difficult, the how isn’t.  All you have to do is face in the right direction, “looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith,” the Hebrew writer tells us in 12:2, and then goes on to tell us how our example did it:  looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, Hebrews 12:2.  He looked ahead to the joy, not around him to the shame and pain, the hostility and the weariness. 

              What do they teach us in our Lamaze classes, ladies?  You focus on something besides the pain.  How many of you took a picture with you that they tacked on the wall?  Then you chose to look at it.  Even then you needed a little help—that’s what those men of yours were there for.  They helped you keep your focus and count your breaths.  You chose to listen to them and follow their instructions (when you weren’t grabbing them by the collar and telling them through gritted teeth not to ever touch you again!), but yes, it worked and you got through it, and you even wanted it again before much longer because you remembered the joy when that precious little bundle was placed in your arms, John 16:21.

              Do you want a happy marriage?  Do you want a good relationship with your family and your brothers and sisters in Christ?  Do you want to greet life every day with a smile instead of a sneer, laughter instead of tears?  The weather you can’t change, but you can change which door you leave by and which direction you look.
 
We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal,. 2 Corinthians 4:18.
 
Dene Ward

May I just make a small observation from years of experience on both sides of the equation?  When you are suffering, when you are broken-hearted, when you are in pain and anguish or full of fear, someone who loves you will inevitably make an insensitive comment, a tactless comment, a mind-numbingly stupid comment.  Do you think they do it because they don’t love you any more?  No, just the opposite—they do it because they hate to see you in such pain, because they want more than anything to comfort you, and in that love and zeal they don’t know what to say, so the wrong thing pops out.

              I can make you a list of things NOT to say in various circumstances.  Why?  Because I have had them said to me in an assortment of painful circumstances in the past several decades.  You are not the only one who has been left with a hanging jaw and a shaking head.  And second, I can make that list because I have said a few myself.  I have friends who have miscarried, who have lost spouses early, who have lost children to accident or disease, whose marriage has fallen apart, who have been the one to discover a mate’s suicide, who have suffered the pain of a horrible disease and its ultimate end, and probably every time I have said something I wished I hadn’t.  I try to remember those times when someone says something similar to me—they love me as much as I loved my friends or they would never have tried.  They would have simply walked away.

              And so I will never make one of those lists that regularly make the rounds—“What Not to Say When…”  In fact, I am getting a little fed up with them.  Those lists seem to imply that the person hearing those words has never said anything dumb themselves, that they would automatically do better.  Pardon my skepticism.  I have known some wise people in my many years, but none of them has ever managed to be perfect in their choice of words every time.  I doubt that anyone in their twenties or thirties or even forties has either.  Should we be willing to learn better?  Yes.  But most of what I have heard has come in a scathing, sarcastic tone meant more to lash out than help someone else learn.

              God expects me to act like a Christian no matter what I am going through.  Did Jesus bark at His disciples the night before His death, a death He knew would be so horrible that He “sweat drops as blood”?  Did He browbeat the women weeping before the cross while He hung there in agony?  If anyone could have been excused for snapping back, it would have been Him, but the example He left was one of grace under pressure. 

              As His disciple I must still be longsuffering, no matter what I am going through.  I must “forbear in love.”  I must “bear all things, believe all things, and hope all things.”  Certainly I must be willing to say, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” if the thing they do comes out of a heart full of love.  It is difficult when, as the Psalmist said, My days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered; I forget to eat my bread. Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my flesh. I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places; I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop, (102:3-7).  I have been there.  On those days, it is difficult to put up with other people’s blunders.  It is, in fact, difficult to deal with people at all.  I am ashamed of my failures and so grateful to my caring friends and family who still showed me their love, even when I didn’t show mine and probably made them wonder why they kept bothering to try.  But I am not going to excuse myself because of my despair by attacking them with a scornful list of their failures.

              God does not put in an exception clause for when we are hurting.  Like His Son, we must still exercise self-control and love, graciously accepting the comfort that those who care sometimes ham-handedly give.  Even afflictions that have nothing to do with suffering for His name can test us as much as persecution can, just in how we handle them.  Isn’t that, in fact, the real test?  Pain is never an excuse for sin.
 
For hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously: 1 Peter 2:21-23.
 
Dene Ward

Most of the time people assume that because I am not in the middle of a crisis, everything is fine with these eyes of mine.  It is difficult to understand that they are surviving on “borrowed time,” that they have outlived the prognosticators, and that any day could be the beginning of the end for my vision.

              Occasionally someone still asks about the things I have been through, and I still answer them without thinking--until they begin to shudder, and I take pity and stop.  One experience in particular makes people shrink about half their size as their shoulders draw in and their chins drop to their chests with a groan.  Even the everyday isn’t pleasant.  Eye drops are some of the most painful medications in existence, and an evening headache is par for the course.

              “Is it worth it?” some asked.  In fact, one person tried to talk me out of any more surgeries.

              Is it worth it?  I began all these procedures before either of my grandsons was born.  Without them, I would never have seen those sweet, tiny faces.  Was it worth the pain and the terror I sometimes felt right before yet another sharp instrument or harsh chemical headed for my eyeballs?  Do I even need to answer that? My doctor thinks I am strong.  No—I was a grandmother in prospect, and a stubborn one at that.

              Some people obviously do not think the Lord is worth any sort of pain at all.  They give up when it gets difficult, and “difficult” can just mean they have problems with relationships, or they must give up activities they enjoy.  They have yet to encounter physical pain; the emotional pain was all it took.

              Keith and I have received threats in the mail, threats that the FBI took seriously enough to send an investigator to look into.  We have endured gossip and slander that spread a couple hundred miles.  We came within two days of being homeless because of, as Paul called them, “false brethren.”  Was it worth it? 

              As we enter old age, looking to the end is no longer a distant view, and that makes it comforting to know that we have a reward waiting for us precisely because we endured those things.  We have yet to face physical torture, and though I no longer consider that an impossibility in this country, I doubt it will reach that point before we are gone.  To have put up with any sort of pain for the Lord, emotional or otherwise, is a blessing.  Finally I understand how the disciples could “count it all joy” to give up or endure something for the Lord who gave up all for us, even if that something is trivial comparatively speaking.

              Was it worth it?  Yes, Heaven is worth it all, but gratitude should ultimately reach the point that merely being able to sacrifice for the Lord is worth even more.  True spiritual maturity revels in seeing our Lord and Savior, not in seeing Paradise; in the ability to serve a God we can see before us, not in being pain- and worry-free forever; in being beside the Father who loves us, not in enjoying one giant eternal party.

              Sometimes going through pain in life, pain that has nothing to do with your Christianity, opens your eyes to spiritual things.  Was that physical pain worth it?  Did it give you a longer life?  A better quality of life?  Did it give you more time with your loved ones?  Usually that is enough to make it “worth it.”  Now ask yourself, what can you make it through for the Lord?  Will it be worth it?  God has the ability to make it so, but only you can make the decision to endure.
 
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 1 Peter 4:12-16
             
Dene Ward

Not long before my first grandchild arrived in this world I told my daughter-in-law, “One day after he is born, maybe a week, maybe a month, and maybe more than once, you are going to sit down and bawl your eyes out.  You won’t know why and you will think, ‘What’s wrong with me?  This is supposed to be the happiest time of my life, and here I am crying.’ 

              “There is nothing wrong with you.  You are simply exhausted and overwhelmed.  You have carried a child nine months, you haven’t slept enough, not only since he was born, but for awhile before that because you were so uncomfortable.  You haven’t sat down except to feed him.  Yes, you love him with a ferocity you have never felt before, but he is one demanding little creature, and you will wonder, ‘What in the world was I thinking?’ which only adds to the guilt you feel.  If you don’t suddenly burst into tears a few times, you aren’t normal, and it doesn’t mean you are a bad mother.  In fact, it probably means just the opposite.”

              I told her all that because I wished someone had told me when I sat down and burst into tears one afternoon long ago.  We do our brothers and sisters no favors by pretending that life is one big fairy tale.  Instead, we seem to bottle up our own emotions and deny they ever existed, while telling them to “Shape up!”

              God put us here to help one another, and it is no help at all to act like we never had these problems.  Babies do not lie down and go to sleep when you need them to.  One word “fitly spoken” will not unravel a tangled conflict.  Sometimes spouses are inconsiderate and unkind and have no interest in talking about the problem and fixing it.  We have lived too long with sitcoms that solve all difficulties in less than thirty minutes and Lifetime movies that depict one intervention mending a twenty year rift in a relationship.  In real life it doesn’t happen that way.

              We once spent an hour with a man who thought himself “the dream husband,” trying to get him to see that his actions were nothing more than abusive control.  The hour ended with him in tears, determined to be better.  The next morning he was again blaming his wife for her lack of gratitude for all his “care.”  That is real life.  Problems that took years to develop will not disappear in a minute, or an hour, or even a week. 

              Our children learn nothing when we hide our disagreements.  Keith’s parents once said, “We never argue.”  When he was finally old enough to figure things out, he answered, “That’s because you both clammed up and walked away, not because you never got mad at each other.”  Children need to see how to resolve conflicts in a godly manner, or even how to apologize when the manner was less than godly. 

              When a young person struggles with sin and we tell him he never truly repented, when someone who is seriously ill becomes depressed and we say, “Where’s your faith?” when another is beset by tragedy and in her grief asks, “Why?” and all we can do is scold, we have failed them.  A brother is born for adversity, Prov 17:17.  When I do not comfort my brother in that adversity, when I am too proud to share the wisdom that has come from mistakes I have made, I have not fulfilled my purpose for being.

              It’s time we older Christians stopped endorsing fairy tales.  It’s time we told it like it is.  Life can be hard and it doesn’t necessarily mean you are at fault. Even when you are at fault, it doesn’t mean you are worse than anyone else, no matter what image others try to present.  Older Christians must realistically prepare the younger for life, and comfort them during their trials.  Job said that when we do not comfort those who need it our very relationship with God is in peril, 6:14,15. 

              God told Ezekiel, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel… and say to them…The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought…therefore you shepherds hear the word of the Lord…I am against the shepherds and I will require my sheep at their hands…Ezek 34:2,4,7,10.  He feels the same way about older Christians who present unrealistic expectations to the younger and then do not comfort and console when difficulties arise.

              I must stop pretending I am completely put together so I can help those whose lives are falling apart.
 
Dene Ward

Although I had babysat a few times and had piano students on Saturday mornings from the time I was 16, it wasn’t quite the same as my first job.  I answered a classified ad at a concrete plant a couple of miles down the road from our house.  I expected to sit in an assembly line sorting tiles with a bunch of other women, dust rising and coating us through the heat of summer days, forty-two and a half hours a week, at minimum wage.  I lucked out.  I had written on my application that I could type and the yard boss grabbed me for his office girl that summer.  I got to wear dresses and sit in air conditioned comfort instead of sweating in blue jeans in the old tin building out back.

              But just like those other women, I didn’t get paid until payday.  I never once expected anything else.  The boss was not going to walk around handing out checks to anyone for work they hadn’t yet done.  Yet we kept on working, sure that on Friday afternoon the checks would come out. 

              I wonder about us sometimes and our expectations of God.  We walk by faith and not by sight, Paul said in 2 Cor 5:7.  Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him, the writer says in Hebrews 11:6.  Yes, God is a rewarder, but not yet.  Certainly we receive blessings in this life, but the best this life has to offer is a far cry from the final reward.  True faith does not expect Heaven now.

              The Psalmist tells us in 33:18 that God will take care of the one who fears him, will, in fact, “deliver his soul in famine.”  I probably would never have noticed this forty years ago, but it jumped right out at me the morning I read this psalm.  He will save us “in famine”—it doesn’t say we will never have to experience a famine.  Paul says we are to “fight the good fight,” 1 Tim 6:12, he doesn’t say God will keep us out of any sort of fight at all.  Our faith will be a shield and breastplate for us (Eph 6:16; 1 Thes 5:8), but it won’t be a peace treaty with the Devil.

              Habakkuk had a hard time understanding God’s reasoning in this matter.  How could a righteous God use a nation even more wicked than His people had become to punish them?  We should never act like we can call God on the carpet and tell Him, “Explain yourself!”  Habakkuk understood that himself, so God gave him the only answer he really needed, “The just shall live by his faith.”

              By the end of the book Habakkuk knew that didn’t mean no one would die.  He knew it didn’t mean they wouldn’t experience horrible things.  And we shouldn’t expect that either.  Despite what so many preach about “health and wealth” to the true believer, this world is not Heaven and God never promised it would be.  He simply promised understanding for what we are experiencing and the help to get through it. 

              It is for us to come to the conclusion Habakkuk finally did in a paean to hope that explains how we all make it through tough times, not just me and my problems, or you and yours, but each of us in the life we have before us and its own peculiar trials and tribulations.  We wait, as he did, for the troubles to come—and they will—and we rejoice.
             
I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. Habakkuk 3:16-19
 
Dene Ward

I was driving back from Bible class, coming down the last hill before the river, rolling green fields dotted with black cattle on the right, and a couple of old trailer houses perched on the left, their yards littered with rusty old farm equipment, screens hanging loose on porches covered with peeling paint, and black and brown frosted-off weeds standing knee high.  It may surprise you that I was driving.  I have reached that point where the doctor is the one who decides if I can have a driver’s license, and it seems the general consensus is that it doesn’t matter if you can tell if that thing by the side of the road is a garbage can, a mailbox, or a midget, as long you know it’s there and don’t hit it.

              But I was really tired.  Most of my medications are beta blockers of one sort or another, or poisons that affect my heartbeat.  Sometimes I am lucky to have a pulse rate of 52 and blood pressure just scraping the bottom side of 100, the top number that is.  The bottom one might be half that. 

              I had just bought groceries for the week, picked up a prescription and some dry cleaning, stood in line at the post office for twenty minutes and taught a Bible class, not to mention driving the hour and a half round trip back and forth to town.  I was ready to sit out the rest of the day, after I got home and unloaded.

              But my weary mind forgot that I was driving and told me to lean back and relax.  I know my eyes weren’t closed longer than half a second, but when my brain caught up with what I was doing and I snapped to, my pulse was racing along just fine.  Good thing I was only five miles from home.              

              And that’s when I forgot that these medications are a blessing, that without them I wouldn’t see at all, and wouldn’t have for several years now.  That’s when I railed against a gift of God.  It’s not enough that I have no energy.  I must also put up with the discomfort of follicular conjunctivitis every minute of every day as a side effect, and nearly constant headaches from the blurry vision that accompanies it.  How can this be a blessing?

              Down days happen, usually when things pile up.  Once again we needed something we couldn’t afford.  Once again we had received bad news about a parent’s health.  Once again something broke down.  My vision had decreased another line at my last checkup.  Keith’s RA had broken through the latest, the third, layer of medication and we weren’t sure it could be knocked down without another layer.  And now I come dangerously close to an accident that could have hurt not just me but an innocent bystander.

              So down I spiraled.  When even blessings—like the medications that keep you seeing—become something you want to curse because all you can focus on are the side effects, you are too far down, and it’s time to find your way out.

             Down days aren’t so much about a lack of faith as they are about a moment’s forgetfulness.  They are about looking for the wrong things, or looking at the right things the wrong way.  This wretched medicine makes me feel horrible, I sometimes think on a down day.  On an up day I remember, this wonderful medicine has kept me seeing long enough to see my grandchildren.

              I don’t for a minute compare myself to John, and I certainly have no idea what his feelings were, but if I had been in his shoes—or in his cell—I might have needed a reminder too.  He had given up so much to fulfill his role in God’s plan as the forerunner of the Messiah.  Yet now, when he has done all that was expected of him, he is cast into prison for speaking the truth.  Surely God would save this righteous man, the one of whom the Messiah himself would say, “Of those born of women, none is greater than John,” Luke 7:28.  But no, day after day he languishes in a prison cell at the mercy of a wicked woman and her weak husband. 

              I would have had a down day or two as I came to realize that my work was finished, that perhaps I, too, was finished, at the completely un-ripe young age of 31 or so.  I don’t know if that is why or not, but he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one, or should we look for another?” (7:20) 

              The Lord sent him what he needed to hear.

              "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me." Luke 7:22-23.

              John already knew those things; he had probably seen many of them.  He just needed to be reminded, and there is no shame in that. 

            God can remind each one of us too.  He does it by the providential words and actions of your brethren.  He does it when a hymn suddenly wafts through your mind.  He does it by giving us His Word, a resource of constant refreshment when we need it.  How many of us don’t have verses we go to in difficult moments?  If you don’t, then you need to make some time today to find one.  Find it before you need it.  Find it, and let the Lord remind you about all of your blessings, both now and to come. 

              You can come up from a down day, but only if you reach out and take hold of the help that is offered.
 
They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31.
 
Dene Ward

I knew a woman once, a faithful Christian, who believed that crying over the death of a loved one was sinful.  She bravely, some would say, faced the loss of a child to a dread disease with a smile.  No one ever saw a tear leave her eyes.  I know a lot of people who agree with her, a lot of people who would applaud her as “strong and full of faith.”  I don’t.  In fact, that erroneous belief of hers affected both her physical and mental health for the rest of her life.  It also made her unsympathetic to others she should have been best able to comfort. 

              God created us and He made within us the impulse to cry, just as He made other appetites and needs.  He never expected us not to cry, not to mourn, and not to grieve.  Do you want some examples?  Abraham cried when Sarah died, Gen 23:2.  Jonathan and David cried when they realized they would not be together again in this lifetime, 1 Sam 20:41, and David cried again when he heard that Jonathan, and even Saul, were dead, 2 Sam 3:32.  Hezekiah “wept bitterly” when he heard that he had a terminal illness, 2 Kgs 20:3.  Paul wept real tears when he suffered for the Lord, Acts 20:19, and he wept for those who had fallen from the way, Phil 3:19.  Where do we get this notion that righteous, faithful people never cry?

              1 Thes 4:13 does not say we sorrow not over the death of loved ones.  It says we sorrow not as others do who have no hope.  “As” means in the same manner.  Yes we sorrow, but not in the same way.  We know something more awaits us.  Our sorrow is tempered with the knowledge that we will one day be together again, but that does not mean the sorrow ceases to exist—it simply changes. 

              I cried often after my Daddy died, usually when I saw something he had made for me, or given me, or repaired that I had thought was a goner.  He was handy that way, and I miss the care he showed for me in those small gestures.  Even now, writing these things makes my eyes burn and water just a bit, several years after his passing.  But I do not, and I have never, let grief consume me and keep me from my service to God and to others.  I have not let it destroy my faith—my hope—that I will see him again and be with him forever.

              Anyone who thinks that crying is faithless sits with Job’s cold, merciless friends.  Job did cry.  Job did ask God why.  Job did complain with all his might about the things he was experiencing, yet “in all this Job sinned not with his lips” Job 2:10.  What did he get from his friends?  Nothing but accusation and rebuke.  “Have pity upon me, oh you my friends,” he finally wails in 19:21.  Paul says we are to “weep with those who weep,” Rom 12:15.  If weeping were sinful, shouldn’t he have told us to, as Job’s friends did, rebuke them instead?  No, God plainly says at the end of the book that Job’s friends were the ones who were wrong.

              And, of course, Jesus cried.  I have heard Bible classes tie themselves into knots trying to make it okay for Jesus to cry at the tomb of Lazarus.  How about this?  He was sad!  To try to take that sadness away from Him strips Him of the first sacrifice He made for us when He carefully and deliberately put on humanity.  Hebrews says He was “tempted in all points like us yet without sin.”  That means He experienced sadness, and people who are sad cry.

              Do you think He can’t understand our specific problems because He never lost a child? 

              And when he drew near he saw the city and wept over it…O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not, Luke 19:41; Matt 23:37.

               When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them... How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender, Hos 11:1-4,11.

              Anyone who cannot hear the tears in those words is probably not a parent yet.  God knows what it is like to lose a child in the worst way possible--spiritually.  Don’t tell the Lord it’s a sin to cry.

              I have seen too many people nearly ruin themselves trying to do the impossible.  I have seen others drive the sorrowful away with a cold lack of compassion.  Grieving is normal.  Grieving is even good for you, and God knows that better than anyone since He made our minds and bodies to do just that.  How much of a promise would it be to “wipe away all tears from their eyes” if He expected us to do it now?  In fact, David asks God in a poignant psalm to collect his tears in His bottle—don’t forget that I am sad, Lord.  Don’t let my tears simply fall to the ground and dry up, keep count of them—“keep them in your book” Psa 56:8.  Do you think He would have preserved that psalm for us if crying were a sin?

              If you have lost someone near and dear, if you have received a bad diagnosis, if you have been afflicted in any way, go ahead and cry.  This isn’t Heaven after all.  But don’t lose your faith.  Sorrow as one who has hope, as the father of the faithful did, as the “man after God’s own heart did,” as one of the most righteous kings Judah ever had did, as perhaps the greatest apostle did, even as the Lord did.  Let it out so you can heal, and then go on serving your Lord.  His hand will be on you, and one day—not now, but one day--He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Revelation 21:4
 
Dene Ward

“They didn’t come see me when I was sick.”

              You’d think by now I’d be used to it.  I’ve heard it everywhere I’ve been, but it still amazes me that people who have been Christians for decades still view suffering the wrong way.  Yes, we suffer in this life.  All of us suffer in one way or the other.  So why do those few think that the reason for their suffering is so they can be “Queen for a Day?” 

              Probably only a few of you remember that show.  I was very young myself.  Originally it aired on a local radio show in LA, but it was picked up for national broadcast by NBC on January 3, 1956.  It has been called the first “reality show” and it was roundly criticized even in its day.  It went like this:  three or four women showed up to tell their stories of woe and suffering and the audience voted on who was suffering the most and that one “lucky” woman received a robe, a crown, a bouquet of roses, and several prizes, in effect being treated like a queen for one day.  A contest to see who is suffering the most?  Really?  But isn’t that what so many in the church do?  “I deserve more attention than so-and-so because I have more problems than she does.”

              People who constantly complain about not getting enough attention are giving themselves away for, as Jesus says, “Out of the heart the mouth speaks,” Matt 15:18.  Indeed, if my suffering were as severe as my “Woe is me!” attitude, I wouldn’t be thinking about the attention I do or don’t get, but about the trial itself.  But all that is beside the point.  Suffering is not about being served.

              Peter tells us that suffering refines us, makes us pure and stronger (1 Pet 1:6-9).  James seems to indicate that suffering brings wisdom (Jas 1:2-6).  But I think that even those things don’t reach the ultimate reason we suffer.  Suffering is about discipleship.  A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher, Luke 6:40.  Why do we think we can be a disciple of a suffering servant and never suffer like he did?

              So why did Jesus have to suffer?  Hebrews tells us that because he suffered he is able to help those who also suffer (2:18), and that as a high priest he is able to sympathize with us (4:15.).  He learned obedience by the things he suffered “with loud cries and tears,” (5:8).  Yes, he really suffered and the whole purpose of his suffering was so he could help others who are suffering the same way.

              So why do I suffer?  Doesn’t it make sense that as a disciple of Christ, I am suffering for the same reason he did, so I can accomplish the same thing he accomplished?  We neither suffer so we can be the center of attention nor so we can stand as judge over others who give that attention.  We suffer so that we can better serve those who are suffering similar things.  Even the purity, strength, and wisdom that come from suffering helps us accomplish those ends.  As with everything else in a Christian’s life, my suffering is not about me, it is about others. 

              Have you been forsaken by an unfaithful spouse?  Be willing to talk openly to those who are going through the same things.  You may well be the only one who understands the thoughts that go through one’s head, the looks you get from others, the ordeal of custody battles and the instant poverty that sometimes accompanies this betrayal.

              Have you survived cancer?  Look for new victims who feel the constant pressure of wondering not if it will return, but when.  Look for still others, not just cancer victims, but anyone with a bleak prognosis.  No one understands the axe hanging over their heads like you do.

              Have you been the victim of violent crime?  No one understands the constant terror that one lives with after that, the burden of overcoming paranoia—seeing a boogeyman behind every face in a parking lot, in a grocery aisle, passing you in a car as you walk to get the mail.  No one else can understand the embarrassment of once again becoming a little child who is afraid of the dark.

              Have you lost a child?  Have you lost a child to the world?  Have you faced financial ruin?  Have you lost everything to a fire, a hurricane, a tornado?  Are you facing disability or the caregiving of a spouse who no longer knows who you are?  Everyone has faced something, and God expects you to use that experience, and the strength and wisdom you have gained from it, to help someone else.  You are the Lord’s agent on this earth.  Don’t let all your pain go to waste.

              None of this can be accomplished if I am still whining about a loss that occurred years ago.  No one can be helped if I am still expecting everyone to pat me on the back for every little thing that comes along.  At some point God expects me to not get over it—that may never happen—but to get past it, to no longer be paralyzed by grief but ready to serve.  Some afflictions are more difficult than others.  Some trials need a longer recovery period, but mature Christians eventually grow beyond the selfish need for attention. 

              We don’t suffer so we can be “Queen for a Day.”  On the contrary, suffering makes us both eligible and obligated to help others.  God expects me to search out those who need my special experiences and serve.  Just when has He ever expected anything less of His people?
 
So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. Hebrews 13:12-13
 
Dene Ward

I had sat there for hours like I always do, occasionally undergoing a test or other procedure, waiting for the doctor to finally reach my chart, along with a dozen or more other patients who also sit for hours every time we go to the Eye Clinic at the University of Florida School of Medicine.  But this time was different.

              An older woman and her husband sat next to me.  As often happens, we began to talk, usually about how long we have been waiting, the longest we have ever had to wait, and the various distances we all travel to see this world renowned, and incredibly skillful doctor we share.  Then she said four words, “I have a shunt,” and everything changed.

              My head whirled around, riveted to her face and especially her eyes.  “You do?”

              “Yes, two actually.”

              “I have one, too,” I said, excitement creeping into my voice.

              Her eyes instantly lit up.  “You do?” and there followed an hour of, “Do you have trouble with depth perception?  Do you see circles?  Does it ache?”  One question followed another, both of us nodding to one another and saying, “Yes, yes. Me too!”

              Finally someone understands, finally someone knows how I feel (both of us were thinking). 

              Someone understands how odd your vision can be; how colors have changed, how light “gets in the way;” how you can’t tell when a curb is a step up or step down or any step at all; how riding in the passenger seat makes vehicles in front of you look much closer; how many strange things can go wrong with an eyeball after what seems to the world like an easy surgery—why, you didn’t even have to stay in the hospital so how could it be serious? Someone else understands how much pain eye drops can cause, and how all those beta blockers can wreak havoc with your stamina; how careful you have to be when doing something as simple as wiping your eye because of all the hardware inside and on top of it; how inappropriate the remark, “I hope you get better soon,” is because there is no hope for better, just a hope that it will not get worse too soon; and someone else knows the feeling that any day could be the day that it all blows up.

              We sat there talking like close personal friends.  Occasionally she looked over at her husband and said, “You see?  I’m not crazy after all,” and he nodded, a bit patronizingly I thought, but we had developed such a quick and strong bond that perhaps I was just feeling protective.

              We were both called to separate exam rooms but when I left, I waved across the hall and wished her well.  I never got her name, nor she mine.  Strange, I guess, but we never felt the need to ask personal questions—we felt like we had known one another for years, and all because we felt the kinship of understanding what each of us was experiencing when no one else did.

              No matter what you are going through today, you have a friend just like that.  God emptied Himself to become a man and experience what you experience, feel what you feel, and suffer what you suffer.  He did that precisely so He could understand.  I always knew that, but now I really know how quickly a bond can form simply because of that shared experience. 

              But what if I had never responded to the woman’s simple statement about a shunt?  What if I had just sat there and done nothing?  That bond would never have formed.  It takes a response to the offer to gain the reward.  It takes a willingness to open up and share with the Lord the things you are feeling.  Yes, He already knows, but you will never feel the closeness of that bond until you share with Him as well.

              That day it felt like I had found, not a new friend, but a long, lost friend from the past.  When it happens that fast, it can’t be a complete stranger, can it?  Why don’t you turn around and talk to the Man next to you today and find out for yourself?
 
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery…Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted, Heb 2:14-18.
 
Dene Ward
 

Trying to make sense of tribulation without the Divine guidance of the scriptures is hopeless.  People have been asking this question for thousands of years.  Why do bad things happen to good people? 

              David, Job, and Jeremiah all spent time pondering the seeming inequities of life, and those writings are where we spend our time mulling over the matter.  It dawned on me one day last week, that after Christ came, you seldom see any writing on the subject at all.  Suddenly the question comes with answers.  Suddenly people see a reason for their troubles.  Suddenly it all makes sense to them.  Why is that?

              Christ created a hope that was only dreamed of in the Old Testament; a hope that the faithful looked forward to with anticipation, but were never allowed to see.  The early Christians, many of whom were never even brought up with the notion of the true Jehovah God, quickly gained a perspective that actually turned tribulations into a reason for rejoicing.  Why?  Because they presented opportunities to serve God and to serve others.  That is what being a disciple of Christ is all about.  That is what they had committed their lives to.  Of course they were happy when an opportunity arose.

              Paul was thrown into prison.  Surely Satan meant that as a means to keep the gospel from spreading.  How did Paul see it?  I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear, Phil 1:12-14.  Paul managed to find two good reasons for being thrown into prison—he could preach to those he had never reached before and others were preaching even more. 

              No, it is not easy in the midst of pain and sorrow, in the middle of worries that spin uncontrollably in your mind all night long to find the opportunity in a trial.  Yet that is exactly what Paul’s example shows we should do. Surely we can find opportunities when tribulations assail us, especially considering how small they are compared to Paul’s.

              Are you suffering with a terrible illness?  How many of these medical people you now see every day would you never have met otherwise?  Now you can show them what faith means.  They might never have seen it otherwise.  Certainly the ones among them who never even pick up a Bible wouldn’t have.

              Are you shunned for your stand for morality?  Perhaps there are others watching who might now have the same strength due to your example.  Perhaps one of them will ask you about it and you will have the chance to teach him, or to invite him to an assembly of saints, a whole group of people who feel like he does, which will give him an instant desire for the fellowship you enjoy.

              Can you see in just those examples and Paul’s that trials may be Satan trying to take you down, but they are also God trying to pull you up, trying to give you a reason for your faith and the legs to stand on when anyone else might simply cave?  Can’t you see that in tribulation God is allowing us to do the thing we claim to be most important in our lives—service.

              Tribulations are opportunities to serve.  Repeat it like a mantra.  Then put it into action.  If we don’t, then have we truly become disciples of Christ? 

              Seize the opportunities.  God only parcels them out to those he loves.
 
"Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. Job 23:8-10.

Dene Ward