My first blog post in two and a half weeks, that's what. Has it really been that long? What a blur. The good Lord knows I've had plenty to blog about. Sorry for holding out on you, blogosphere and faithful readers. I've been off-campus for quite a while now, not able to muster the energy for much more than moving from one piece of furniture to another. Not much sunlight, and definitely not much social interaction. Yet despite an entire month of very limited social interaction, my beloved student leaders and co-workers with InterVarsity at UNC offered an opportunity for me to join four of our students in offering some personal sharing at Large Group last night. The topic of the night was, "Where is God in the midst of suffering?" After much prayer, I felt like I needed to do it.
Wrote out some notes ahead of time, avoided them like the plague (not something I've been very adept at recently) when the spotlight was on. The Holy Spirit gave me the good gift of divine revelation in the heat of the moment. Microphone on. Knees wobbly from a combination of intense hunger (my appetite is never good before speaking in public) and unbelievable bodily fatigue. To be honest, I wasn't in the mood for new revelations, unprocessed nuggets of "wisdom." Earlier in the day would've been great, you know, when I had some time to turn my word vomit into an eloquent presentation. But I was not meant to be eloquent on this night. I was meant to be real and honest.
And this is my now-slightly-more-processed nugget of divine revelation. Back in 2002, when Mom had her first bout with cancer, I noticed that when everyone was freaking out (What if she dies? What will life be like without her?), I was calm. I told myself, and my family, "It's okay, she's gonna be alright, God will take care of her." I believed that. And hey, not bad for a 16-year-old, if I do say so myself. In 2006, for round 2, I had a similar approach, this time even more confident given the 100% success rate Mom had at beating cancer into remission. At 21 years, I was still apparently optimistic in times of crisis. August 2009 punched a serious hole in all my optimism. And here's my wonderfully divine revelation. My "optimism," my "faith," that Mom was going to be okay was actually based on an inherent lie. In 2002, it was based on relative inexperience of serious tragedy. It wasn't based on "God is good," or "God is Healer." It was based on, "There's no way God will let her die this soon." In 2006, it was based on my very limited experience of serious tragedy avoided. "If not 2002, why 2006?" In 2009, I didn't have time to feign shallow, essentially faithless optimism. "Your mother is sick" was immediately followed by, "It's probably a matter of weeks," and "There's not really anything we can do at this point in time." Her liver was failing before we even knew she had cancer again.
And God was gracious that way. Actually, these last few weeks of rest and retreat, though certainly rife with cabin fever, have shown me a number of ways that God has been gracious through all of this. He used Mom's desire to carry this alone to prevent me from going back to my "That can never happen/It will be alright" optimism. He has used this mono to give me the time and space to rest and reflect, to get to know him, and myself, a whole lot better. And he went ahead and let me have all the symptoms, with the exception of spleen-explosion, just to make sure I didn't try to go back to work too soon. And these are just a couple examples out of many ways that the Lord has been gracious through the last two and a half months. And now, praise and thanksgiving be to God alone, my strength (when I am strong) is based on a faith that God is working for the good of those who love him, and my weakness (when I am not strong) is always welcome before a God who can and will be my strength at all times. I have accepted weakness these last few weeks as I lay ill in bed. I have accepted weakness as a part of me, perhaps for the first time in my life. And letting go of my compulsion to feel (to myself) and appear (to others) strong has been one of the most freeing things I have ever experienced.
The centerpiece of all this is the beautiful fact that God's approach to suffering is not an empty "It will be okay." Nor is it a heartless "I will use this for the good of the Kingdom." Though it definitely will be okay (in the eschatological end, or new beginning, however you look at it) and it most certainly will be used for the good of the Kingdom. But God's response is not primarily utilitarian. I like this now disbanded band, Clem Snide, despite their lead singer Eef Barzalay's decidely bitter approach to religion. No sense in letting differing ideologies ruin my taste in music. In their song, "God Answers Back," Barzalay sings from the perspective of God...
I need you just as much as you need me
And the flower-loving bees
Your blood will color every sunset
Your tears will help me grow some trees
It's an ugly image of a primarily utilitarian deity. Utterly incomparable with my Heavenly Father, Creator, and Lord. My God's primary response to suffering is sympathy, literally. It's a Greek word, directly transliterated in the English language. Sumpatheia literally is "suffering with." God's first order of business when suffering was first experienced by human beings was to set in motion a historical chain of events that would make room for God to incarnate himself in human form in his Son, Jesus Christ, so that he could lead a life decidely different from ours in that it was righteous, but decidedly similar to ours in that he experienced immense suffering. Our shed blood isn't for coloring sunsets, nor our shed tears for growing trees. To my knowledge, suffering entered a world in which those things already existed. Our shed blood and shed tears are a) generally quite miniscule in comparison to Christ's, and b) simply ways that God colors not sunsets but our character, and ways that God grows not trees but our likeness to his own righteous self. Redemption carries a delightful exchange rate: we give over our suffering, we receive back eternal life in the future that is without suffering, and abundant life in the present that understands suffering's laughably temporary sting.
Well, this sofa's getting a bit dull. To the recliner I go...
Friday, October 9, 2009
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