growth in the suffering
Photo by Fuu J
You could plant me like a tree beside a river
You could tangle me in soil and let my roots run wild
And I would blossom like a flower in the desert
But for now just let me cry
You could raise me like a banner in the battle
Put victory like fire behind my shining eyes
And I would drift like falling snow over the embers
But for now just let me lie
Bind up these broken bones
Mercy bend and bring me back to life
But not before you show me how to die
If you knew that your suffering, and your most painful crosses would lead to your greatest joys in heaven, would you embrace them?
I have written a few times before about that “sweet spot” we find with Jesus when we are suffering, and how those of us who have experienced it yearn for it, minus of course the suffering part. Show me, written and recorded by Audrey Assad, is a song about that exact kind of suffering, that suffering where we are the closest to Jesus.
“It’s about not wanting God to take away the pain just yet because I know it’s worth something,” she said. “And I have something to learn so just leave me here for right now but be with me.”
I remember feeling exactly what she is describing when I was at my lowest many years ago, and some of my friends and I have discussed “that place” we found with Jesus in our deepest grief, that sweet spot where He was with us, sometimes even carrying us in our suffering, and we have yearned to find it again. Why is it so difficult for us to find when life is going great, and we are not struggling or suffering?
God provides an opportunity to grow through suffering.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)
I don’t want to have breast cancer. In fact, I can’t even believe I’m actually typing those words, but I am, and they are real. I don’t want to go through what I have ahead of me, but I have to, and as things are moving ahead I am already seeing Jesus in the middle with me. He has given me a sense of peace I could never have of my own accord. His grace truly is sufficient.
I feel I am in that “sweet spot” again. I want more and more of Him. I long for my time with Him each morning and all throughout the day. I need Him. I need Him to help me focus, to translate and keep straight the plethora of information overload, and I need Him to carry me when I am paralyzed with options. He is wrapping me in a blanket of prayers, woven together by the prayers of so many people, and He is promising me that none of this will be wasted.
He was with me in my MRI this week, 45 mins in an uncomfortable position, no movement allowed face down, and feeling claustrophobic. I just kept praying, “Jesus, I am in the boat and there’s a storm all around me. I’m stepping out and I am walking to you. I will not look down. I’ll keep my eyes on you. Please, stay with me. Keep me still and give me peace.” And He did. He was there with me.
As I face things head on I know that He will continue to use my suffering for His glory. He has opened the door for me to share my faith in practically every appointment I have had so far, and I have been able to share the peace that He is giving me with colleagues and others.
When I am perfectly healthy, I generally go about my day, thinking about God when it’s convenient, but like the apostle Paul, when I have a thorn in my side, a suffering that He will not instantly remove, I am humbled.
…Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me—so that I would not become arrogant. I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12: 7-10 NET)
Our human nature is to focus on our wants, our needs, our desires, but suffering gives us an opportunity to overcome our human nature, to open our hearts and accept God’s grace.
Ironically enough, the more we suffer, and we turn to God for His grace, the more grace we have to extend to others. I like to think our suffering is meant to make us more like Christ which means we have more grace and love to extend to others. Suffering prepares us to minister to and to comfort others who suffer. Isolation is one of the hardest parts of suffering. To be able to empathize with someone who is suffering is a healing balm to an open wound.
What is the link between our suffering and being equipped for ministry?
David Powlison answers this way:
When you’ve passed through your own fiery trials and found God to be true to what he says, you have real help to offer. You have firsthand experience of both his sustaining grace and his purposeful design. He has kept you through pain; he has reshaped you more into his image. . . . What you are experiencing from God, you can give away in increasing measure to others. You are learning both the tenderness and the clarity necessary to help sanctify another person’s deepest distress. (Suffering and the Sovereignty of God)
As unwelcome as it is, suffering strips away all the distractions of this life. What was a mountain yesterday, is now seen as the molehill it truly is. We are forced to face the fact that we are powerless to change other people and most situations.
The fear that accompanies suffering drives us to God like a child burying their face into a Mother or Father’s chest. Recognizing our own powerlessness is the key to experiencing the real power of Christ because we have to acknowledge our dependence on God before His power can flow into our lives.
I once heard Charles Stanley say that nothing attracts the unbeliever like a saint suffering successfully. We are here to make God real to those around us. The reality of God’s power, His love, and His character are made very, very real to a watching world when we trust Him in our pain.
Jane Kristen Marczewski, also know as Nightbirde to her fans, is such an example of a saint suffering successfully. Nightbirde took the world by storm in 2021 when she earned the Golden Buzzer on America’s Got Talent for her original song, “It’s OK.”
For those who aren’t familiar with her, she auditioned shortly after she was told she had a 3% chance of survival after a three-year battle with cancer. She was 31 years old when she passed this past February 2022.
Known for her famous quote, “You don’t have to wait until life isn’t hard anymore, before you decide to be happy,” Nightbirde found that “sweet spot” with God in the midst of her suffering and she was able to be strong, share her faith, and spread joy until she passed.
I think the best way for me to explain this whole concept of growth in suffering and in our pain, finding that “sweet spot” with Jesus is to share one of Nightbirde’s blogs.
God is on the Bathroom Floor.
I don’t remember most of Autumn, because I lost my mind late in the summer and for a long time after that, I wasn’t in my body. I was a lightbulb buzzing somewhere far.
After the doctor told me I was dying, and after the man I married said he didn’t love me anymore, I chased a miracle in California and sixteen weeks later, I got it. The cancer was gone. But when my brain caught up with it all, something broke. I later found out that all the tragedy at once had caused a physical head trauma, and my brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain and panic.
I spent three months propped against the wall. On nights that I could not sleep, I laid in the tub like an insect, staring at my reflection in the shower knob. I vomited until I was hollow. I rolled up under my robe on the tile. The bathroom floor became my place to hide, where I could scream and be ugly; where I could sob and spit and eventually doze off, happy to be asleep, even with my head on the toilet.
I have had cancer three times now, and I have barely passed thirty. There are times when I wonder what I must have done to deserve such a story. I fear sometimes that when I die and meet with God, that He will say I disappointed Him, or offended Him, or failed Him. Maybe He’ll say I just never learned the lesson, or that I wasn’t grateful enough. But one thing I know for sure is this: He can never say that He did not know me.
I am God’s downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. I show up at His door every day. Sometimes with songs, sometimes with curses. Sometimes apologies, gifts, questions, demands. Sometimes I use my key under the mat to let myself in. Other times, I sulk outside until He opens the door to me Himself.
I have called Him a cheat and a liar, and I meant it. I have told Him I wanted to die, and I meant it. Tears have become the only prayer I know. Prayers roll over my nostrils and drip down my forearms. They fall to the ground as I reach for Him. These are the prayers I repeat night and day; sunrise, sunset.
Call me bitter if you want to—that’s fair. Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. But count me also among the friends of God. For I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: “I’m sad too.”
If an explanation would help, He would write me one—I know it. But maybe an explanation would only start an argument between us—and I don’t want to argue with God. I want to lay in a hammock with Him and trace the veins in His arms.
I remind myself that I’m praying to the God who let the Israelites stay lost for decades. They begged to arrive in the Promised Land, but instead He let them wander, answering prayers they didn’t pray. For forty years, their shoes didn’t wear out. Fire lit their path each night. Every morning, He sent them mercy-bread from heaven.
I look hard for the answers to the prayers that I didn’t pray. I look for the mercy-bread that He promised to bake fresh for me each morning. The Israelites called it manna, which means “what is it?”
That’s the same question I’m asking—again, and again. There’s mercy here somewhere—but what is it? What is it? What is it?
I see mercy in the dusty sunlight that outlines the trees, in my mother’s crooked hands, in the blanket my friend left for me, in the harmony of the wind chimes. It’s not the mercy that I asked for, but it is mercy nonetheless. And I learn a new prayer: thank you. It’s a prayer I don’t mean yet, but will repeat until I do.Call me cursed, call me lost, call me scorned. But that’s not all. Call me chosen, blessed, sought-after. Call me the one who God whispers his secrets to. I am the one whose belly is filled with loaves of mercy that were hidden for me.
Even on days when I’m not so sick, sometimes I go lay on the mat in the afternoon light to listen for Him. I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t really explain it, but God is in there—even now. I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true.
If you can’t see him, look lower. God is on the bathroom floor.
When we turn to God in our pain, He can use our suffering to grow and mature our faith. When we seek God through His word and through prayer, we find Jesus. That is the “sweet spot” because Jesus understands our pain and suffering because, Jesus also suffered. We can find Jesus in our deepest pit of despair.
Something to consider: If you have walked through suffering and are on the other side, how will you help others from what you have learned? If you are currently suffering and haven’t considered what God might be trying to teach you, how will you reframe your thoughts and look at them from God’s point of view?
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