Jesus Archives - Page 28 of 28 - call me pasturescott

33 Things I’ve Learned About My Suffering

This is a newly edited version of a prior version of this post (written 7 years ago)

33 years ago this month I ‘tithed’ my legs to God. You don’t believe me? The righteous Lord is my witness, I asked the Father to change my whole life – my ways and destiny – and offered my legs on the altar of surrender as a sign I recognized Him as the owner of all of me.

Just as Christ was three days in the tomb and Jonah was three days in the belly of the great fish, I was in limbo for three days, waiting on the Father to act. And on Friday night – three days later – He did. (Read about it in My Story on the menu bar above)

When I was a severely ‘backslidden’ college junior, my eldest sister was deeply burdened for her miserable brother and sent a brief epistle outlining her sisterly concern. Her words spoke life to my dead bones and fueled my desperation to leave my wretched, lost condition far behind and pursue that for which Christ had pursued me.

Dearest Scott, my heart hurts for you—it’s no fun when you’re miserable. But it may be partly my fault. You see, I’ve been praying seriously that this would be a year in which God makes you a ‘man after His heart’—a man of God—I love you so much that I want to see you reach heights that so few ever really reach. Maybe our Faithful Father is taking you through the ‘refining fire’ to become that man who knows Him intimately—Scott, I known I’m preaching, but please let this be a year where nothing or no one is more important to you than God Himself—this year may be a humbling one for you—and if you don’t want any more of the ‘fire’ maybe I should stop praying for you…

“Man after His heart.”

“Heights.”

“Refining fire.”

“Fire!”

These are my companions through life and I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m living the life I could have only hoped for 33 years and a different lifetime ago. My wheelchair is an asterisk and paralysis a footnote. The real narrative of my life tells the Story of a faithful God who is using my brokenness as a means of taking me from glory to glory.

Thank you, Lord, for entrusting me with this life and teaching me about Your ways.

Here’s 33 things* I’ve learned about God in my school of suffering:

1. The refining process is tied to His purpose of our transformation and glorification

2. God is always faithful in the furnace; you may not always know what He’s up to, but you can always know He’s for you

3. God is always good and enduringly kind

4. He wastes nothing in making us holy

5. He redeems out of us each and every flaw

6. I am strongest when I’m utterly dependent on Him

7. When I weep, He weeps along with me

8. He never leaves me to face the dark valleys alone

9. Every trial and all suffering has a redemptive purpose

10. In the heat of adversity, God keeps His hand on the thermostat and His eye on the thermometer

11. Faithfully enduring trials invites us into deeper intimacy with the Father

12. It is not in suffering itself that brings glory but our voluntary, joyful acceptance of it

13. Broken people release the aroma of Christ’s love, healing and mercy

14. God only allows suffering when He is intent on birthing something new out of it

15. When we run from trial, or fight against it, greater works and blessings in us will be aborted

16. Each trial and hardship is accompanied by sufficient grace to enable us to overcome

17. To voluntarily endure suffering is proof that we belong to the Age to Come…it is the hostility of THIS age that works against us (and is the doorway into future glory!)

18. Suffering is the will of God

19. Suffering does not occur in a vacuum. It’s purpose is to unveil dedicated vessels to all creation to show forth the glory of God, so that all creation–every created thing–will know God has no equal and is infinitely wise, good and holy.

20. Our suffering adds greater punishment to the adversary’s destiny in eternal hell

21. When we faithfully stand in trial, the enemy is humiliated

22. The heavenly realm looks on in awe and reverence when the people of God express surrendered joy through trial

23. Our faithfulness in adversity strengthens the church as a whole and increases faith in others who witness it

24. When we suffer – and come through it – God will give us a platform to help others in their trial

25. Experiencing God’s faithfulness through our suffering makes sin and the sheen of this world less attractive

26. Our sufferings are always captured in prescribed, momentary seasons and the blessings are exponential and eternal

27. Suffering subtracts pride and multiples humility

28. The more you triumph in trial, the more courageous you become and the threats of the enemy become less intimidating

29. There’s no greater evangelical “tool” than for the unsaved to encounter a broken vessel that let’s the Light of Christ shine into the darkness!

30. The afflictions of this lifetime will determine the affluence of my eternity and the pains I endure here will reciprocate to pleasures compounded daily for eternity

31. Until faith has been tested in fire it cannot be trusted in life

32. God is more focused on my character than my comfort – but not at the expense of His being my Comforter!

33. Joyfully embracing brokenness leads to patience, gratitude and infectious hope

*Incidentally, I composed this list parked at my son’s graveside, having a chat with my boy

Beyond the Clouds: The ‘Graham’ Posts

How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?…And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting…God gives it the new body he wants it to have…Similarly there are different kinds of flesh—one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish…There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies…The sun has one kind of glory, while the moon and stars each have another kind. And even the stars differ from each other in their glory.
– Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthian believers (Chapter 15:35-41, NLT)

Once upon a Sunday night, my little boy was staring out the passenger window and looking into the evening sky. He was silent for several minutes.

“What’cha thinking about, buddy?” I asked.

He turned to me and I saw the most serious expression on his sweet boyish face.

“Dad,” he began, “you know when the clouds go away they become stars?”

“They sure do, buddy.” I smiled at my prodigy.

My boy.

Sigh.

Oh, the insufferable ache!

Fifteen or so years later, give or take, I’d be looking into his casket; face, neck, hands and arms – every exposed place – just covered with tattoos. Innocence erased. Boyish wonder swallowed by a life that had stolen away too many spring-times and summer adventures and given only harsh winters in return. My little boy far afoot. A young man who tried to grow up way too fast and far too free.

Looking back, I’ve said some pretty hard words in my years of life and ministry…but nothing I’ve ever had to say compares to this:

My sweet boy died from a heroin overdose; cold, alone and homeless.

This is not the eulogy Sandy and I would have imagined on that morning we laid eyes on our little boy for the first time. Chattanooga seems so far away…

Surely not this tiny bundle?

This same little boy who, on the way home from church on Sunday, with family settled in for the quiet ride, begins singing “I Love You, Lord” word for word – and in perfect pitch – from his little fastened-in car seat? And, oh, did I mention he was only 18 months?…

This same little charmer who sidled up next to his mama and bravely watched a drama depicting the five missionaries who spilled their life-blood in Amazon sand and were added to the hallowed list of martyrs, at which he looked up at her with fiercely honest eyes and remarked, “that’s what I want to do with my life!”…?

My little third grader whose girlfriend Stasia ‘broke up’ with him, then later, on the playground, told her best friend he broke up with her, which led to that friend pushing him down and calling him a “stuck-up ***-hole”, then mocked him, saying, “aren’t you going to cuss back?” and our Gravy Train picking himself up, brushing himself off and replying with a sense of bravado, “Nope. I’m a christian”, to which she then called him a “stupid christian” and he just smiled…?

You mean, that brave little guy?

My precious seven-year old who told me he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up, and when I jokingly asked “you don’t want to be a preacher?” (I never pushed this on him), honestly replied, “I’ll be an astronaut who goes to church and loves the Lord”… Him?

Our darling first-grader, holding the ‘S’ sign for his Christmas program and standing ramrod-straight and belting out the all-too-famously encouraging Advent passage of Luke 2:10,11 loudly and proudly? Surely not him?…

The very Gra-Gra Scott who changed his “when I grow up” dream a year later and told us he wanted to be THREE THINGS: “a father, a ‘ski racer’, and a husband”, then proceeded to inform us with utter sincerity “I won’t even kiss a girl before I’m married, and if she asks me to dance, I’ll say ‘uh-uh, not until I get married!’”… Not, for the love of Pete, him?

Our little ‘Bubby’ who would not be silenced on McDonald’s playgrounds, telling other little boys and girls about his True Love Jesus, and Sandy getting a couple different stare-downs from appalled mothers, to which she could only smile and shrug, and the day our little guy actually “led a little African-American playmate named Terrance to Jesus”…?

Him? Dead of a heroin overdose at twenty-four, all alone in the back seat of a car?

Our precocious nine-year old who walked in on Mommy and Daddy one morning in Clearwater, Florida, then ran out giggling and telling Grandmother about what he saw?

Not my ten-year old little shadow who lamented to me one day he didn’t have a best friend, then me saying “sure you do, buddy, tell me who you’d rather spend your time with more than anyone else on earth” and hearing him say, “you, Dad”…?

Him?

Oh, dear God, no…please…

But…yes. The very same.

I have an entry in my journal, dated July 1, 1999, when Graham was not yet ten, where I’m crying out to the Father for the soul of my son who was struggling with his young faith. He was in an unsettling phase of questioning everything about God, along with a bent toward the far country. I find myself drawn to a single phrase that apparently reflected the fear I held for my child:

Dear God, I beg you, do not let my son run in rebellion…

The prayer was a daily plea until the end of his life. You’ll find it in every form all over my journals. I pled for the Lord to keep our son from drugs, pre-marital sex and a prodigal life. I wanted him to go to his wedding day a virgin. I begged God to make my son “a man You would write about.”

Over and over…

and over…

again.

How we wish for better endings. Sigh.

And yet…

December 16, 2013 was not the end of the story. While we were planning to see him at Christmas for a visit, the Lord gave us something worth eternally more. His body came home to us, but our son made it beyond the clouds. We gladly trade in our sorrows for the Father’s grander story for Graham.

Among those whom we shared a hug with in the five-and-a-half hour long receiving line at Graham’s viewing was a blind man who sees things mere mortals can never see, a friend, arm-in-arm with his wife who guided him to me. Tom handed me a note and told me to give it to Sandy later. He said it was “hefty and robust” and she needed to know what God spoke to him.

Later on that night, home and still reeling from the impending chore of burying our only child the next day, I unfolded the note, read its contents, and silently broke. The words told my wife that “one day you will see your son, running to you, skin gleaming.”

For all these stories and recollections of our Gra-Gra, Father, we thank you. Thank you for allowing us to be his on-loan parents. Each and every memory is its own separate “star” in an evening sky clouded right now by heartache, questions, grief and wish-fors. Even some regrets.

But, in the end, when the clouds roll away, there is nothing left but a brilliant galaxy of truth, lit by the unarguable proof from our Father that the same tattooed shell we saw in that casket is right now and forevermore adorned with everything his crying heart on earth hoped for: real peace, real hope, real answers, real freedom…real life.

You were right, son. When the clouds go away, they turn into stars. Tonight we’ll look up and ‘see’ you shining and feel you running toward us with skin gleaming.

And we’ll be okay.

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Chattanooga Nights: The Graham Posts

Each and every evening, Sandy prayed over her baby boy – even into his young adult years – the words “Sleep sweet in Jesus…”

Night was never Gra-Gra’s favorite time; he didn’t sleep through the night until he was 11 years old! These were his most vulnerable hours, those pre-‘nighty-night’ moments.

I can still hear Sandy call out in her same sing-songy way, “Gra-Gra, time to go night-night!” and our little man reply, “I don’t want to, mommy.” But then, knowing he so disliked the night, would help him ease into it by indulging their sweet ritual.

For many years, they shared this mommy-and-son time; incidentally, it is when Graham often opened up about the things that either bothered or mattered to him. Sandy would climb into bed with her beautiful baby boy (at whatever age) and listen to his dreams, fears, burdens, day’s recaps and tomorrow’s plans.

We didn’t know it as we drove away from Erlanger with our new baby, but a night was coming to us, so dark and dreadful. How we needed our Father to climb into our bed with us and tell us it was okay to close our eyes and sleep, that he was keeping watch over our souls.

Ernst

Before we could take our baby boy across the state line from Tennessee into Georgia we had to get permission from child services in our state. Because the little guy came early we weren’t able to get the requisite home visit in time. We had to scramble to get it done and make sure every duck was corralled and every T crossed to go from Point A to Point B. The next twenty-fours hours from hospital hand-off to home would require some pretty fancy footwork.

The game plan was to leave our son with Sandy’s sister in Chattanooga while we raced the two hours in time for an afternoon home visit with our very by-the-book no-nonsense child services officer, Ernst Bierkerut. Yeah, whatever you’re picturing in your head, that’s him. Imagine our glee, when after a grueling two-and-a-half-hour session, Mr. Bierkerut was finally, mildly, unenthusiastically, somewhat okay with our home being borderline acceptable.

“You may go get your son,” he deadpanned.

We, on the other hand, danced like little schoolkids and cried happy tears to the heavens. Ernst may have even slightly smiled.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
– Job

Friday, September 29, 1989 Chattanooga, TN

Eight years earlier, I face-planted into the thin smelly carpet of my dorm room and told the Lord I was done with living life on my terms and behaving like a libertine when I was away from my Christian college’s campus. The hypocrisy is over. The rebellion ends here and now. Whatever it takes. Whatever I need to surrender.

Now, eight years later, on the exact day and in the very same city, I have a son. It’s not lost on me that, one, dates are important to God within the sphere of human events, and, two, though I lost something valuable (my legs), I gained something infinitely better: fatherhood.

The Lord gives, takes away, and gives much more in its place.

Eight years. Eight, as I understand Hebrew numerology, relates to new beginnings. Sandy and I had come to the end of our season of longing and pleading, despair and dashed hopes. God came through, as he does. The heavenlies had shifted and a new day had come for this childless couple.

Ernst gave his permission, as if he could stop anything God ordained, and we were off to Chatt-town to get our boy.

We roared into town, throwing the car into park in the driveway. The small house was packed with loved ones, all celebrating this next mile of our journey with us. A quick supper, we were saying our good-byes in the dining room when a family member came around the corner from the living room. His face was white as a sheet.

“He’s not breathing.”

Three harrowing words. In a simple turn of phrase our world suddenly started splitting at the seams. Little peanut Graham was still as a stone in his carrier, head lolling to the side. Frantic, we dialed the emergency line at the Children’s Hospital and, after describing the symptoms, were told to get him there as fast as possible.

Sandy’s mom climbed into the back seat with our newborn and we beat a path to the same hospital where his life began, a twenty-minute drive away. We caught nearly every red light en route and were at one infuriating moment stopped by a slow-moving train. My mother-in-law tried to keep us calm by saying Gra-Gra was fine, still faintly breathing. “But hurry.” [Later she told us she was frightened because nothing she tried brought any kind of response. At one point, she was convinced he was gone. ]

By the mercies of God, we arrived at Erlanger and a waiting team of responders literally wrenched our son away and rushed him behind large steel doors, disappearing from view, our tiny bundle lost amid a blur of scrubs and white.

Our next moments dragged by until a doctor came out to us and said he’s alive, just barely, the preliminary tests show some kind of infection, perhaps even meningitis, they would need to do a spinal tap ASAP, do we give our permission…wait here until we finish…

Seemed to us that Death was doing all the swallowing this time……

A nurse told us the tap had been performed and they were waiting for the results. “Would you like to see your baby?” she asked us. We were directed to a room closed off by a wall of glass for viewing. A tiny, naked little body, just a stub of a tiny person, was stretched out on a metal table, electrodes, lines and tubes somehow draped in, on, and around him. A small bandage covered his lower back, covering the spot where they drained some spinal fluid. Sandy reached for her mouth. We both silently wept.

Dear God…our little boy…

We never left the hospital. The ICU waiting room was our bunker and the first night as our newborn son’s legally recognized guardians was the longest of our lives. Sometime during the night, I needed to find a secluded spot and found an alcove nearby where I could cry out to God for answers.

“Father,” I pled, “what is this? Why, God? Why?” Silence. “I don’t understand,” I continued. “Will my son live?”

More silence. Impregnable silence.

“Please, oh God…please…we need a miracle here…tonight…ohjesusohjesusohjesus…please…help…”

I’ve never heard the audible voice of God, but I’ve come close and the closest I’ve ever come was in those next few seconds as I waited for news – any news – from the Great Physician. I am most certain He said:

Your son will not die, but live. I have a purpose for Graham’s life; Satan knows it and wants him dead. Rest now, I will not let that happen…

He did recover. Results for meningitis returned negative. Evidently, he had contracted a bug during the birth process and his tiny body had to learn to fight it off. He was meant to live.

He spent eight days in the hospital and we never left his side. Eight days. There it is again. The number eight. Perhaps I’m reading far too much into it, but please allow me this. It’s not a panacea but a signpost that God was near, he was with the three of us, and Death was being swallowed up in his victory.

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