Today I bemoan yet another day my recent path of affliction has ruined. And on Sunday, no less. Well, pooh.
This being called to a life ofsuffering for over thirty years, while never running lean on grace, has its moments with frustration.
So thankful that, on this ‘day of perpetual reminding’ – the reminding of His delight in my weakness*, that is – I ran across this tidbit of welcome inspiration from James Innell, more widely known as J.I. –
God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your ‘thorn’ uncomplainingly — that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak — is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace.
– J.I. Packer
My wife and I are scheduling some episodes on the Pasture’s Podcast, fixating on the theme of “Unfixable.” The thought is, how does one find the fight and will to go on – in joy – when things don’t get fixed? When your prodigal doesn’t come home, or your spouse doesn’t get healed, when that prayer isn’t answered, when that divorce happened anyway, when the tomorrow you looked forward to yesterday looks a heckuva lot like the today you’re presently enduring…
…and we think we’ve found the perfect inspiration piece to decorate our conversation:
Faith-healing is grand, but faith-enduring is grander.
– Charles Spurgeon
Stay tuned, beloved.
But mostly, keep clinging to grace. It’s all we’ve got.
____________________
* His delighting in our weakness means only that He sees the generous work of redeeming out of us all that is irredeemable, and the pouring in of all that prepares us for greater glory – and He deservedly takes joy in it. Selah.
A decade ago (or thereabouts) some brothers met me at the altar of the church I once pastored and prayed for a healing in my life. A saint who pastored me was present on that Sunday morning and suddenly had a ‘word’ he felt compelled to share:
Scott, when your healing comes it won’t be based on your faith but through the faith of others.”
Fast-forward to last month, roughly a decade later.
I was in the throes of one of my most mystifying physical trials in a long history of afflictions, mostly known and often avoidable, the first clues of which manifested the week of Christmas. Starting with sudden – I’ll take care not to overshare here – gastric discomfort then sharp, stabbing pains down my left side, I reckoned I might be joining the ranks of gluten and/or dairy allergy unfortunates and thusly changed my diet posthaste.
Alas, there was near-immediate relief. For a week.
It’s return came with medieval unkindness; there was non-stop nausea, intestinal, ah, belligerence and that infernal left-side pain. After a date night with my beloved I went straight home and to bed. For the next two months I was homebound, bed-ridden and pathetically infirm. Only Sandy and I will ever know the hopeless existence that commenced and emanated from that bedroom. I couldn’t lift a cup to my lips the pain was so great. I could barely tolerate food. Dry-heaving became my frienemy throughout the ordeal. Turn me to change the bed’s draw sheets? Forget it. I couldn’t. Just…couldn’t.
Sandy had to wait on me, hand and foot, week after arduous week, for which she NEVER, EVER complained.
Let’s hear it for the Sange:
Yepsiree…no doubt…
Here’s what you might be thinking (unless you’re still distracted by Ryan Gosling in a tux, ladies):
Boy, Scott, I’ll bet your bedroom was a holy of holies and your bed the mercy seat whereupon you lay suspended between the cherubim, earth and glory. Certainly you floated above us all in rarefied air.
It’d sure be cool to spin my story that way, let me tell you, but most days I felt like I was this guy:
Day turned into night, night labored till dawn, day after day, the same drab and hopeless scene stretched before me, leaving my soul rasping and gasping and bereft. If I lay utterly still the hours were tolerable but woe was me if I had to shift in bed even a few inches. The doctors were befuddled. There were CT scans, ultrasounds, upper endoscopies, colonoscopies, blood and stool tests. Each revealed nothing except mounting bills. Hope hardened and Heaven seemed light years removed. Worship eluded me. I wasn’t mad at God – far, far from it! I don’t believe I even once doubted His goodness. What I did doubt was healing, so began processing what life might look like as a bedridden saint. Frankly, I’d rather I just died.
So, no, no holy place and no ascending incense. I did sense some winged creatures hovering most days, but more in line with:
So, yeah, you get the idea.
However…
Ministering priests began to tromp around on the temple grounds one day in very late February. When Hope seemed bleakest, my priests began stoking the fires, laying the coals of infused incense, offering the breads on the altar, running the oil to the lamp stand, and presented their prayers befor the Lord. Yes, many intercessions had been offered up for me but in one concentrated 24-hr period it was exponential. Texts, voice mails, notes, tweets, direct messages – whatever mediums were available – were laid as my mercy seat upon which the Christ of Comfort took His seat for me, and from which His healing power flowed to my bed of affliction.
There’s a miracle story that Dr. Luke weaves into his gospel tapestry that fits well here.
Seems there was a paralyzed man who needed Jesus’ redemptive touch. He obviously had friends who cared about him for we find their faith in its creative zenith as they Mapquested™ Simon Peter’s address and four-man lifted and carried their disabled friend to his front door in the village of Capernaum. They’d heard Jesus was holding court and believed their friend had a shot if they could only get him near to the Healing Man.
Big obstacle. The house was crowded. Even the overflow rooms were packed. What to do, what to do?
They eyed an outer staircase that led to the roof.
Why not, they thought.
Removing tiles, whether thatch or true tiles, they created an opening just wide enough to lower their buddy to a sliver of space at the feet of the Son of Man. I’m sure Jesus stopped in mid-sermon when He heard the overhead commotion and looked up. I’ll bet a smile widened on His face as the Father revealed His plan to Him in that moment.
“You will heal this man, spirit, soul and body, My Son,” He heard.
Yay! And it’s the Sabbath, and there’s an entourage of Pharisees sitting here! Even better!
(I’m sure Jesus was truly jazzed, because, well, Pharisees…)
Luke is careful to report that Jesus was moved by the faith of this pathetic man’s friends. Just so, I only had a spittle cup’s worth of hope for my own healing, but God blessed me with an army of ministering priests who showed up together and carried me to the mercy-seat of Jesus, believing as one that there was Gospel Hope for me.
Within 24 hours of this prayer barrage,I had no more debilitating pain.
I could turn myself.
I could bathe myself.
I could dress myself.
No doctors, no medicine, no therapy.
This miracle is solely attributable to Jehovah-Rapha, my Healer.
A friend recently asked me about that decade-ago exchange, about my healing coming based on the faith of others not my own. She asked if I thought this was that. I don’t know, quite honestly. If it isn’t, it’s enough. More than! Whatever God decides, I’m at peace with it. But somehow I believe an even greater healing is coming. Henceforth, I’m waiting for some friends to call me someday and say:
Burying your child bites. At any age. And Christmas, no less. If it wasn’t so sad, it’d seem almost ‘made-for-Lifetime-tv’ cliche.
An empty stocking. A poignant absence. A cask of memories stoppered, it’s aroma sealed off so that only the fragrance left over could be imbibed. It’s tough sledding.
Yesterday I returned two books to the library for my bride. The sweet girl with the kewpie doll voice asked about our holidays. I paused a couple of ticks, then lied. It was great, etc., etc., family in town, etc., great food, laughs, etc., etc….
Her co-worker overheard and added, ” oh that’s good; mine was the best in memory.” I bowed and took my leave. I could’ve sucked the air out of the atmosphere right then with a story made for Kleenex, but what possible end would that achieve? So I wheeled toward the exit, smiling, and kept our library a tissue-free zone.
My next stop was the neighborhood hair cuttery. What the heck, I thought. It happened. I can’t hide it forever. So when the smiling girl behind the counter asked my phone number, I knew her screen would pull up two names, mine and my boy’s.
“Are you Scott?”
“That’s me,” I said cheerily enough.
A few clacking noises of fingernails on keyboard, then, I took a breath and took my chance.
“You can remove Graham’s name.”
I did it. I requested the erasure of my son’s memory from their hard drive.
She laughed, probably a little too loudly for anyone’s comfort.
“Remove it?” she half-smiled, but now seemed momentarily puzzled.
“Yeah, go ahead and take it out.”
In retrospect, I’m pretty sure she thought I was being facetious? Because now she smiled a full-white-teeth smile.
“I know its morbid,” I continued, “but he’s no longer with us…”
What happened next caught me off-guard.
“Okay, Mr. Mitchell, right this way…”
She never even acknowledged what I said. I followed her to her station and parked in front of her mirror where I saw the reflection of a dad who had just lost his son, laid his body to rest, and would never know the feel of grandkids bouncing on his paralyzed lap.
In ten minutes, the insipid business of clippers on head and hair on floor was over; I paid, tipped generously, and quietly removed myself from the premises, already on to the next jejune errand.
Sigh.
Life goes on.
Good grief.
Tonight, as I compose these thoughts, I’m surrounded by the din of small talk and redolent aroma of coffee in a bookstore cafe. No one here knows me, thankfully, or what I’ve just been through.
I find the juxtaposition of conflicted feelings has got me all Sybil-ed out. On the one hand, I’m safe in my nest of anonymity. On the inexplicable other, I want to tap on my cardboard cup with my plastic spoon and announce to the room I’m grieving. I somehow think if I did that, a few might be mildly irritated by the interruption, some would be confusedly alarmed and others might smile, nod in deference, then return to their paused-on paragraphs, none the wiser. Who would it help? No one, most of all me. I easily relent.
It’s been almost two weeks removed from “the dreaded call” and the suddenly-childless couple are braving the public. We want to, yes, need to, get out, but we’re not yet ripe for frivolity.
The day after laying our son’s body in a scar in the earth and paying our soulful respects, someone wanted us to leave all that weight and grief behind and let Madea turn our mourning into dancing with them. Completely understandable. But nowhere near our radar.
There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Amen, Clive. I so get you.
It’s hard to be on Facebook these days. For all its good, it can be painfully obtrusive or, even worse, obtuse. Aloof. People’s lives (rightfully) have already moved on past our momentary grief. We’re just not that interested in friends’ parties, get-togethers, selfies and animal snaps. But I too have been the unaware perpetrator of similar ‘crimes’ against others’ sorrow. Sitting here atop my own ash heap of dirge, I’m acutely aware of it.
We’ll move on, yes, but grief is, paradoxically, healing. So we’ll heal here in the warm bath of hurt. And praise Him in the pile.
On the day I knew of my son’s departure from this hard earth, I was visited by a friend. He came to the house, drew a chair close beside my own in the dining room and wept there with me, wordlessly, for fifteen minutes. Tears didn’t run down his cheeks, they flung outwardly to the floor. After he hugged me and held my hand, he prayed a few-second prayer, hugged me again then left. I still talk about that visit. There was no Romans 8:28, though it’s no less true. No counsel, though we welcome words of life into our soul. No bumper sticker theology. No tweets. No platitudes. Just grief.
Good grief.
We’ll be okay. We are okay. We’ve been prepared for this. God has made us ready. And when our Father requires us to redeem our suffering by entering into the suffering of another – which He will – we’ll most gladly tell of His good deeds, gracious intentions, expert wisdom and unfailing love – without words, if we have to; with simply being present; with silent sobbing; with resurrection hope; with His authority, because of a new degree added to our schooling.
On the night before Graham’s funeral I wrestled with my responsibility to share something. The people need to hear from us. I didn’t want my silence to be translated into depression or hopeless grief. The pastor in me wanted to explain, expound, exposit and exhort. The encourager in me wanted to encourage the many who came with question marks. It turns out, my pastor friend handled it with all the eloquence and grace I pined for. He was magnificent. I, on the other hand, listened to my wife who said, “it’s okay for us to grieve, Scott. Just for today, would you be a Dad instead of a minister?”
Yes, my love. Yes, a million times over! I like Dad mode. Who says it’s supposed to be over?
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