Face to Face with God in the midst of Suffering
Proof of God’s love for us
Name any tragedy. Let’s start back with Hurricane Katrina which slammed into New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Many displaced people lost their homes and their income, and even worse, 1,886 people lost their lives. Katrina caused 81 billion dollars worth of damage.
At the time, news coverage of Katrina even upstaged a colossal tsunami that claimed countless lives in Thailand just eight months earlier.
Since that time, who can keep track of all the tragedies, climate-related and otherwise, that have plagued the world?
Unfortunate circumstances often create doubt about whether God loves us.
When we are personally affected by suffering, we lose our objectivity and can feel isolated. It’s bad enough when we hear about someone else’s loss, but when it hits home, it is easy to question how a God who loves us could allow gut-wrenching sorrow.
But have you noticed how bad times are always opportunities to bring out the best (or worst) in people?
Once a man climbed on top of his house to avoid the raging flood waters below. His next-door neighbor invited him to join him in his tiny rowboat. The man replied, “No thanks. I’m waiting on God to save me.”
The Red Cross team passed by in a motorboat and yelled, “Come on! There’s room for you,” to which the man again replied, “No thanks. I’m waiting on God to save me.”
Then a police officer flew overhead in a helicopter and pleaded with the man to grasp the lowered rope and come aboard. Again, the man repeated, “No thanks. I am waiting for God to save me.”
Eventually, the flood waters rose so high that the man drowned. When he met God face to face, he asked “Why didn’t you answer my prayers?”
God replied, “I sent two boats and a helicopter. What did you want?”
Even the dumbest jokes contain a kernel of truth: God is present in the midst of suffering.
We can choose to act as God’s representatives on earth. Even children have proven to have the ability to mitigate suffering. I remember reading about a little girl who single-handedly initiated a charity devoted to providing teddy bears worldwide to children in hospitals or suffering bereavement.
Another time I knew a nun in the U.S. who organized a fund drive for the hungry in a war-torn country. She single-handedly raised $2,000 herself carrying a Styrofoam cup and walking the streets of New York City.
Granted, suffering can be almost unbearable even when others try to help. No one wants a free one-way ticket to the proverbial valley of the shadow of death. Nevertheless, some suffering at least in the form of death is guaranteed as part of the human experience.
We are all going to lose parents, grandparents, and friends. Most of us will suffer in many other ways as well. We are experiencing the consequences of living now in an unnatural world, one tainted by and affected negatively by sin — the original sin committed by Adam and Eve as representatives of the human race.
Death was not part of God’s original plan for us.
Unfortunately, we are no longer living in the Garden of Eden.
C. S. Lewis offered this perspective on suffering: “I answer that suffering is not good in itself. What is good in any painful experience is, for the sufferer, his submission to the will of God, and, for the spectators, the compassion aroused and the acts of mercy to which it leads” (p. 110, The Problem of Pain, Macmillan: 1978).
It helps to remember that Jesus willingly suffered unspeakable agony and death on the cross for our sake. His first wounds were the sharp pain of betrayal when Peter denied knowing Him and Judas betrayed him.
The suffering Jesus endured went far beyond what anyone can imagine. He wrestled with His path, tempted three times by Satan to take the easy way out — suggestions that Jesus declined.
When Jesus fasted forty days, Satan tried to convince the Son of God to exercise his power and turn stones into bread, but the Bread of Heaven, Jesus Christ, knew that suffering was a part of God’s will for Him.
Love compelled Jesus to exude drops of His Holy Blood as He prayed in Gethsemane.
He endured mockery and immense pain when a crown of thorns was jammed down onto His Sacred Head. He was beaten. He was forced to carry His cross.
Try to imagine having your entire body weight tugging at the torn flesh of your nail-torn wrists while suspended on a cross.
Imagine literally simultaneously dying of thirst.
When we are blindsided by our pain and feel abandoned by God, we are in good company. Jesus himself cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, has thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).
Of course, the Good News is the story doesn’t end with the crucifixion. The glorious day of Christ’s Resurrection we celebrate every Easter is a joyful reminder of the day death died. It is a reminder that we too who follow Jesus Christ, will rise from the dead and live forever.
If Christ suffered, we should not be surprised that we will suffer, too.
I have personally known some of the most amazing people who have not only endured horrible tragedies but also have thrived, performing almost superhuman feats of love, and as a result have served as an inspiration to others.
Here is one of the best examples: A vivacious Catholic woman in Lubbock, Texas, was helping her retired husband load the car in preparation for a trip to south Texas. The couple was traveling to see their son receive a military honor.
She went inside the house to grab something and heard her husband, a highly decorated former member of the military, shriek “Dial 911.” A male passerby had first asked her husband for a bottle of water. The husband had given him one. The stranger returned a few minutes later and tried to steal the husband’s wallet. During the struggle, the stranger stabbed the husband.
The stranger, a cocaine addict, was apprehended only a few blocks away when he showed up to work as usual at a local restaurant. He was out of breath and his shoes were covered with blood.
The husband meanwhile died shortly thereafter in the hospital from his injuries.
The news coverage was extensive, and everyone was shocked by this senseless, unprovoked act of violence in broad daylight.
Less than two weeks after this tragedy, I ran into his widow at the grocery store. She was beaming as usual. I offered my condolences and said, “If you can get through this, can you imagine what a powerful witness for the faith you will be?”
She said, “Oh, I know. I prayed for extraordinary grace to get through it, and the Lord gave it to me. I’ve already forgiven the killer and asked for permission to go see him in jail. My children don’t want me to go, but I am going anyway. I want to talk to this young man and find out about his life. I want to help him.”
She became in a sense, the Face of God delivering proof of God’s unconditional love.
