Christians have become
complacent, comfortable. We like everything to run efficiently and with ease.
We have no time for those things which interfere with our daily routines.
Problems are welcome as long as they don’t involve too much discomfort and sacrifice
on our part. Grief, trauma, sorrow—those are messy items that we spend hours
upon hours trying to fix and tidy up. We want to remove the suffering and make
everything better. We will apply every salve known to mankind in order to
ensure that there are no scars left behind. We wouldn’t want anything spoiling
our ideal lives; and wounds are ugly, complicated affairs that have the ability
to leave nasty scars.
Yet, I look at the resurrected
Christ, whose power lives in us, and He had scars. Thomas put his hand in the
wounds of the resurrected Christ. Those scars and His suffering are
foundational to the power to which God has given believers access. Christ’s
suffering is the very thing that has given Christians their freedom. His
weakness is our strength. The message in
the scars is not that the power of the resurrection makes our suffering go
away, but that God can and will use it for His glory. In Philippians 3:10, Paul
states that he wants to know Christ and the “power of his resurrection and the
fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.” How many of us are truly willing to
share in the fellowship of suffering? How many of us are willing to walk among
those who are suffering great trauma and loss and enter into a relationship founded upon suffering? But that’s what we have been called to do.
Christians need to get over this
idea that suffering, grief, loss, and sorrow are horrible things to be avoided
at all costs. When someone suffers great trauma, it is our job to climb into
the trenches with that person—not in an attempt to make the suffering go away,
but to help that person process the unspeakable and bring the power of the
resurrection to revitalize the dead places. It is our job to assist the individual
as he or she figures out how to live with the atrocity and visualize how God
can work through weakness to demonstrate His great strength.
Life is messy, and grief is even
messier. Quit trying to sweep it under the rug. Instead, encourage healthy
conversations that will truly help the person who is suffering learn to heal.
