CYBER COLUMN by John Duncan: Pain and suffering

Posted: 2/05/07

CYBER COLUMN:
Pain and suffering

By John Duncan

I’m sitting here under the old oak tree, thinking of life in its ups and downs, in its hopes and dreams, and in its disappointment and suffering. C.S. Lewis once hailed life as a series of events with the “life of souls in a world” try to eliminate suffering from life: “Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.” As much as I hate to admit it, souls alive suffer and survive.

Suffering, I do not like it. Just the other day, my youngest daughter and I were working out. You know—exercise, Rocky Balboa motivation and shed pounds and dress for success. After all, prom is just around the corner for her, and I could stand to lose a few pounds. It is also the time of year to trim a few pounds and prepare for the swimsuit season soon to follow. I asked her to hand me a free weight, one that I would  lift with my legs and arms, and low and behold she accidentally dropped it on my left knee! The pain and suffering were enormous. I can tell you I was not thinking of Jesus my High Priest of suffering nor Saint Peter’s admonition, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). I thought of the pain in my knee, and it was as if a lightning bolt had zapped me. Good news, though: A bruise ensued and the pain subsided.

Scholars and people in general spend a vast amount of time trying to figure out evil, suffering and pain. Why does an evil Osama bin Laden prey in a reign of terror? Why do people suffer through cancer and survive chemotherapy while their skin turns gray and they lose their hair? How does a pain in the knee communicate with the brain so quickly, and how much pain can people endure daily—pressures at work, the kids out of control, back pain that makes you start the day with Advil, the pain of watching a loved one die, or internal pain that boils beneath the surface of the skin, deep in the soul, like a volcano ready to explode?

Philip Yancey once explored suffering and evil in his book Disappointment with God. I guess I am too simplistic and figure suffering comes from the fall—you know, Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and the apple that was not really an apple and snake in the garden, which in itself was enough to make you want to scream and all that stuff. And I figure, like C. S. Lewis, life produces the possibility of suffering if you live long enough. And I figure we bring suffering, much of the time, on ourselves. I think you know what I mean. Smile anyway! Praise God. Watch out for free falling weights! By the way, my knee is feeling better today.

I drove by the old church down the hill yesterday. We have two buildings here at Lakeside Baptist Church—an old one and a new one. The new building is high on a hill here in Granbury. A few folk wanted to call it a mountain, but I have seen mountains, snow-capped, ones filled with waterfalls that create a calm roar, and ones with trees that sing glory when the wind blows. The new church is not on a mountain, but rather on a hill. You can see the church from all over our county. The church has beautiful stained glass, which if you drove by it at night, would capture your attention. It has a steeple that once impaled upside down through the roof during a storm. I thought Harry Potter had arrived or the Wicked Witch minus her broom. The church is nice and, on most Sundays, fills up with people. I get confused some times: Am I in real estate, buying land and building buildings? Or am I in personnel management because it is my job to direct our staff and, generally, because life is about expectations, to keep most people in the church happy while managing people. Or am I a pastor, delivering Bread to hungry souls and pouring living Water on their dehydrated hearts and helping them maintain the steady diet of spiritual health in relation to Christ? Oh, I am a pastor, but it does get confusing sometimes, all these expectations. One thing I know, every Sunday a bunch of people show up, and I feel their pain. Most have lived long enough to have suffered, more than a hurt knee!

Oh, I drove by the old church. We still own it and do nice things in that old building—student ministry where we help young people consider their choices as well as their futures, Bible study, ministry to families with a preschool where one day they called me to come quickly because a man and woman, a divorced couple, were arguing in the church parking lot and it was bad, real bad. See, all these expectations. I raced down there in a breathless rush and told them to call the police. Am I the police? We also help women, many who have suffered enough at the hands of abuse, poverty and turmoil, to get their lives together and we train them for life skills and help them find jobs. Christian Women’s Job Corps, we call it. We do some nice things in that building, God-honoring ministry in that building that helps change lives. I feel good about that.

Still, for all we do now, the most common thing mentioned about that building to me in the community is the time the roof caved in. It was over 20 years ago, before I became pastor 20 years ago, when the Texas Baptist Men were building the church building. Architects and engineers did their work, and men poured the concrete foundation and prayed over it for Christ to be the foundation and raised the walls, and the trusses were placed on to hold the roof.  Plywood was added, and men were climbing that roof and sitting on it and using nail guns and the whole nine yards, when, poof, like a weight blasting a knee, the whole thing came tumbling down! The local newspaper, The Hooterville News, like the one in the old show Green Acres, showed up and took pictures. People who saw the roof cave in said it happened in slow motion. One guy rode the roof to the ground and injured his ankle, but, thankfully, only one person was hurt. Seems someone changed the plans without consulting the architect or an engineer, and the trusses were not strong enough to hold the roof. I think of C. S. Lewis’ quote about suffering, and for some people the roof has caved in on their lives. Pain ensues. Suffering becomes their friend, or enemy, however you look at it.

The community talks about the roof caving in like Britons talk about “The War,” WW II, as if it happened yesterday. The church members who were here on that day talk about another event—the day a boy, Tommy boy I will call him (not his real name), fell in a hole, a deep hole over 10 feet. He stood near the edge when the soft ground gave way and slid and fell and went kerplunk when he hit rock bottom, literally. Workers rescued him with a rope and laughed about the boy in the hole later, but Tommy boy has had a hard time since that moment, troubles, jail time and other junk. It seems he has had a hard time trying to climb his way out of a hole of suffering since that day. That’s the way life goes. One day the roof caves in, and another day you’re trying to dig your way out of a hole.

So here I am, sitting under the old oak tree, just pondering life, waiting for it to snow again, and musing over the madness of life’s falling weights, caving roofs, people digging themselves out of a hole and the suffering that attaches itself to life like a leach.

And then it hits me: I am so thankful for Jesus. He knows suffering, the cross. He knows people, their suffering. He knows of their pained knees, the roof caving in, and the holes from which they cry from the darkness while trying to climb toward the light.  And Jesus loves them, longs for them to heal from the bruises, yearns for them to raise the roof again, and desires for them to climb out of the hole to stand tall and live in the laughter and joy and peace and light again. He loves you. You do not suffer alone. And God has a plan. Yes, he does. Watch out, though, for flying weights! Check the roof once in while! Do not stand to close to deep holes, either! And trust in the Lord with all your heart!

John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines. You can respond to his column by e-mailing him at jduncan@lakesidebc.org.