Expect Suffering

 I fear that I am beginning to be a one note song in my head and my heart. Maybe it’s just the season of life that I am in but as I dwell on my thoughts and how they reflect scripture I am drawn to think it’s something more. I think that suffering is more than just a season. “This too shall pass” everyone's grandma once said to them. But what did she really mean, or did she even know the gravity of that sentiment and it’s deep ancient truth that “Heaven and earth shall pass away”(Matt 24:35) and all things will be made new (Rev 21:5) . We were created, we fell, redemption came and covered retroactively and proactively, we are being sanctified and one day it will all be finished and eternity can begin. Right now we are being sanctified. What else could that mean except suffering? Now this may sound funny but I think that suffering has gotten a bad reputation. We shouldn’t fear suffering, we should expect it and maybe even something more than just expect. “In this world you will have trouble but don’t be afraid for I have overcome the world!” ( John 16:33) I’m not a runner but there was a time in my life where I did enjoyed running and at the beginning of a day with perfect weather I would get excited about running. I knew I was going to sweat and breath hard and at times my ankle that I sprained really well a few years ago was going to hurt but I also knew that at the end of the run my body was going to be harder, more lean, better than it was before. I was excited for that feeling. I have also had times in my schooling where I was just so excited to learn; I looked forward to class. I felt this way about my world religions course with Dr. Domani  Pothen at Multnomah Bible College. I knew that her brain was going to ring me out in that hundred and twenty minutes. She was going to tell me I was wrong and challenge me to grow and study but I also knew that at the end of that course I was going to be more knowledgeable about God than I was before. I was excited to have these trials that would better me.  Can I say it? Can we as Christians be excited about suffering? I know this is probably not a popular idea that is going to catch on anytime soon but I think it’s catching on in me. I think this truth has been about twenty years in the making in my life. I have always anticipated suffering. I have waited for it, always asking God, “ok is this where I get to suffer?” When I was a teenager, “ok Lord, am I supposed to be alone my whole life and never find a husband? Is this where I am supposed to suffer?”, when I was a wife, “Ok Lord, he is deployed to a war zone. Is he going to die and me become a widow? Is this where I’m supposed to suffer?” when we wanted to have a baby, “Okay Lord will I always long for a child? Is this where I am supposed to suffer?”  I prayed that God would change my heart. I asked him to make me like that old woman who knows and loves and just rejoices in Jesus at every moment and then one day driving home from the hospital where my dads chest was sawn open in hopes of saving his life I asked again, “Lord when are you going to start hurting me to heal me? Is this where I get to suffer?” and he said yes. And the suffering that came from that day and the months to follow has been the greatest blessing of my life so far. No, you didn’t hear me wrong… BLESSING. My dads death, it took him three days to die, we were jerked back and fourth about whether he would live or not and when he did die his body was swollen and chopped up, his chest left open,  he left my mom with a pile of bills and properties that were under water and a physical mess, totally disorganized and no will, he left my son to never know him, my sisters to have no one to walk them down the isle at their weddings, my niece and nephew asking, “where did papa go?” and me pregnant with twin girls that were conceived the week before he died, never to see their papas face or to be held by his strong, rough hands and still ……it was a blessing.  There was no other way to bring about the kind of change in my heart that occurred this past year and I am beginning to believe that there is no other way to truly know Jesus except by way of suffering, trial, pain and loss. This has been the hardest year of my life AND the most blessed year and I hope only that Gods plan has more years like it to come because I’m being made new. 

What I didn’t think about or realize in my prayer to change my heart is that the only difference between me and that little old lady who has such great faith is years and years just like the one I had. Suffering does that when you know Jesus, it crushes you into a position of constant kneeling and praise. I know that this notion of getting excited about suffering may seem almost rude to some who have suffered much more than me and maybe much more than I ever will but I still think I should be bold in laying it before us and say that we can look forward to the rest of our lives. We can be excited about the suffering it will bring and look back with joy on what it has brought because it will draw us ever closer to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It has drawn us closer to the heart of Jesus who suffered far beyond any other individual. “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”(Isaiah 53:5)  “Behold I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5) Expect suffering and not just, but anticipate and rejoice in it for the sanctification of God himself is in it and he is making us new.