Most of the books that I have on suffering are small volumes, but they deal with a weighty issue. (Tracks Of A Fellow Struggler, John Claypool; Play The Ball Where The Monkey Drops It, Gergory Knox Jones; Faith For Troubled Times, Elkins and Brown; Night, Elie Wiesel; A Little Death, Mary Jane Creel; A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis.) There are larger volumes which deal the subject in a comprehensive way, like Suffering by Gerstenberger and Schrage.

We live in a world filled with sorrow and sadness. We are confronted with so much news about suffering, probably for two reasons. There are more people alive than ever before and faster ways to communicate what is happening around the world. We learn quickly about natural disasters, wars, evil acts of men, droughts, starvation, epidemics and plagues. We see death and destruction on a large scale almost daily on our television screens. In addition, we know of the daily suffering of friends and fellow Christians.

This suffering comes from many sources. Jim Russell mentioned the inward, untold pain of those who are divorced in a Bible study Wednesday evening. A friend of mine who is divorced wrote these words about his suffering.

"Are you single in this couple-oriented society? Never married, divorced, widowed? Let me assure you that being single in a couple’s world is not totally fruitless, unnaturally odd, or a natural damnation. I speak from experience---ten years of it (now 30 years, since 1973—MW). I am single by divorce from a mate, not death of a mate.

"You must first realize that death of a mate is, in many ways, easier, simply because it is final and there are no retributions, no restrictions. Even though this love has been taken from you, you are left with grief, not regrets, with precious memories of a wonderful love, not unpleasant memories of a faded love. What you had once cannot be taken from you. After a period of bereavement, you can pick up your life and go on with it—sometimes even with a new mate.

"Divorce, however, is devastating and seems to go on and on. It seems to last forever, as the marriage should have. It is especially difficult if children are involved; always having to be in contact with the ex-mate. There is no end to the situation or the realization of failure. The idea of rejection hurts and is the hardest feeling to fight.

"Divorce has serious complications, the most dangerous being that you failed as a person to make your marriage work, no matter the circumstances surrounding the decision for divorce. . . . It is a long, hard road. Trials are many---loneliness being the worst! You are alone with your thoughts and remorse, with no one to share them; no one to understand, listen or calm your ruffled, sick feelings. You feel pathetic, abused and unloved."

I like the way Eddie Hendrix handled a sermon on divorce and remarriage recently. He said that he told the audience his topic and asked those in the audience to allow him to speak plainly to those who needed to hear this message. The intent of the sermon was not to cause additional grief and guilt to those who were divorced, but to teach and warn those who were married about keeping their vows before God.

Many Christian couples are suffering from the hands of their own children. If disobedient children only knew the grief and anguish they cause their parents, perhaps they would behave differently. But the more you care for your children, the more you are concerned about their spiritual welfare, the more pain you feel when they live wasteful lives.

A few years ago, Leon Barnes spoke in the FHU lectureship on the theme, "Parents in Pain." In those messages, he said: "There is a pain beyond imagination caused by a disease with no cure. There is a severe pain with ailments that may have a cure and yet the momentary pain is so severe that we have no way of knowing how to deal with it. This is emotional pain that comes from loneliness, disappointment and hurt. Perhaps a friend has turned his back upon us. Maybe it is pain that comes because all our dreams suddenly seem beyond our reach. There is a spiritual pain of growth and development; seeing brothers hurt and aching with them; or seeing a church divide, fuming and fussing. There is a pain that may well go beyond all of these. There is a pain that almost has to be felt in order to comprehend. That is the pain that comes to a parent because of some disappointment with regard to his child. . . Perhaps the most agonizing cry, other than the cries of Jesus on Calvary, ever made is David’s after hearing of Absalom’s death. He cried, "O, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! I would to God I had died for you, O Absalom, my son, my son." (2 Sam. 19:33.)

Grown children today are hurting their parents on an unprecedented scale. They waste the resources of the family after the parents have worked hard and long to secure them. They dishonor their parents by both their actions and words. Parents are always made to feel responsible, to bear the guilt and burden.

Brother Leon Barnes noted these lessons about parents in pain. "1) The fact that I have pain as a parent does not make me a bad person. David was a good man after God’s own heart. 2) The pain that I feel may be the harvest reaped from my own sowing. Understand that this is not always the case. 3) There can be a restoration of joy. I can find again the fullness of joy in the presence of the Lord. 4) God is not expecting me to earn my way back. God longs to forgive us out of his amazing grace. 5) When I turn my life around, it may or may not affect the future of my children. Sometimes the things that we have done and our failures have gone on for so long and so far that no change that I make now will turn them. But that is not necessarily the case. The very best thing that I can do to move toward the goal of turning them around is to turn my life completely around and to live in a full relationship with God."

The father of Luke 15 sadly stepped aside and let his son go into the far country. It is difficult to do, but probably the best thing to do. Do not try to coerce them into doing right. They will not as long as they do not desire to do it. They must be left long enough feeding the swine for them to "come to themselves."

Someone wrote these sad words to me this week. "My hopes never counted for much. I want to sleep forever. I am not asking anyone to think of me; it seems that I never was worth it. I only wanted one person to love me, truly love me. I knew what I liked to have, but it wasn’t meant to be. The sun comes and goes, and that’s the way life is."

A woman who died of cancer in April, 1989 wrote the following true story in a poem. It is about a brother and sister who had a hard time keeping a home while they were young.

Dathol and Joe Carl

We read so often of children

Who are left orphaned at an early age

But let me share with you

A story of two who started life

With a torn and shadowed page

First was a loving Mom and Dad

With a precious baby girl

Who was taken from them

It seemed as in a whirl

To these two were born

How she lifted up two hearts

So burdened and forlorn

Just as their happiness seemed

To soar up to the mountain top

Alas, with the birth of a baby boy

Mother’s life did stop

Grandma stepped in to help this dad

With his precious girl and boy

But this story is so sad

It seemed they could not see joy

Dad, too, was taken from them

In a time, so very brief

So grandma was left with the two

To share her woeful grief

Then grandma’s health did fail

From her these two were torn

Both physically and mentally

She wished she had not been born

The loss to her was so great

This woe she simply could not take

So she too went away

To await the great Judgment Day

Her precious grandchildren then did abide

With the grandparents from the mother’s side

But after they got settled in

Appears the death angel again

Not once but twice he rang

The death song again he sang

So the little girl and little boy

Seemed to feel they could not find joy

But then an uncle and aunt

Said they’d take them in

So a new life, they did once more begin

After all this what could happen more?

The little girl did cough

Until very tired and sore

But the doctors operated

And seemed angels from above

Watched and care for her

With God’s own wondrous love

She railed around and then

At a very young age

She met a young man and fell in love

And turned another page

She married her young man

And took her little brother

Of course, she loved him

As if she were his mother

Such a wonderful woman and man

This girl and boy did make

No one would ever dream of the sorrow

They as children had to take

Each has a wonderful family of his own

To love and cherish and guide

I know the loved ones are watching

From beyond with joy and pride

I’m sure they are standing

And holding heaven’s gate ajar

Saying, Be sure you guide our grandchildren

To this place death can never mar

By Retha Mae Lindsey

Why does it occur? Why so much suffering? If only there was some discernible reason, some pattern, it would be easier to accept. Why do little children suffer and die? Why do the innocent suffer? Through the ages man has sought to understand why. Dr. Bernie Siegel, who wrote the foreword to Play The Ball Where The Monkey Drops It, wanted to know something about suffering. His wise mother told him that he could learn about suffering from nature. So he went for a walk and looked for clues. Early in his walk, he encountered a tree that had fallen across his path. He put on his gloves and tried to move the tree. A sharp prink on the edge of a leaf pierced his glove and cut his hand. Later, on his winter walk, he observed several boys playing with one another. They were in a pile with legs and arms going in every direction. They said that they could not get up, they were so entangled. He punched a foot with a stick and one boy yelled. He punched another one. It was beneficial that they could feel pain. They knew immediately which hand and foot belonged to them.

Further down the lane, he found a duck trapped in a bush. He reached down and tenderly freed the duck. Over on a small pond, he saw a young deer that had wandered out on the ice. The deer was slipping and sliding, sprawled out to brace himself. He helped the deer off the ice. When he started walking home, he noticed behind him the deer that he had rescued from the pond and several others. He stopped to look at them. There was appreciation in their eyes for what he had done.

What had Dr. Siegel learned about suffering from nature? He said that he had learned that some pain was good and that God has given us something to do in life about suffering. We should seek to relieve pain and suffering wherever we see it. By the way, if pain and suffering is sent from God for some reason, for punishment, would we not be resisting God’s will if we sought to remove the suffering that He sent?? If we should seek to remove pain and suffering in this world, then God did not will it or send it. Since Jesus went about doing good seeking to remove human suffering, then we can do likewise. It is not against the will of God to do so. (See The Plague, by Albert Camus.)

Most people seeking answers conclude that even with the Bible we do not have all the answers to the questions about human suffering. Even in Job, when God speaks to him, there is no definitive answer to Job’s questions. The story ended more with a declaration of the sovereignty and power of God, than stooping to answer Job’s questions. John Claypool, Tracks of A Fellow Struggler, came, in part, to this conclusion. "I am called to live in order to know rather than trying to know in order to live." (page 37.) That is, we must move forward with courage rather than full intellectual understanding.

Man gets what he deserves. We want to believe in justice and fairness in life. Man wants to believe that good things happen to good people because they are good. Bad things happen to bad people because they are bad. We know that people who suffer often blame themselves in some way. If they had just been more faithful, maybe this disease or death would not have occurred. When facing serious issues of life, many try to bargain their way with God. If I just get better, I will be a better person. I will visit others who need help. I will attend church more often. Kushner told the following story about a family who faced a tragedy. A middle-aged couple lost their beautiful nineteen-year old suddenly. She died due to a blood vessel bursting in her brain. When the Rabbi visited the family, he was shocked at what the parents said. They said, "You know, Rabbi, we didn’t fast last Yom Kippur." (When Bad Things Happen . . ., 8.) Kushner asked, "Who taught them to believe in a God who would strike down an attractive gifted young woman without warning as punishment for someone’s ritual infraction?" Well, some believe such a thing because they are trying to make sense of random suffering.

God is trying to teach us a lesson. Is suffering for educational purposes? One Rabbi taught, "Suffering comes to ennoble man, to purge his thoughts of pride and superficiality, to expand his horizons. In sum, the purpose of suffering is to repair that which is faulty in a man’s personality." (Kushner, 20.) Did the terrorists fly into the towers to teach Americans some particular lesson from God?

One mother lost her young child as they were riding along in their car. The mother had forgotten to fasten the seat belt and the younger child fell out of the car. Was God trying to teach her a lesson? Did she need some improvement in her character that this would correct? Is it to teach the parents to be more careful? This cannot be accepted as a reason for suffering. "That is too trivial a lesson to be purchased at the price of a child’s life." (Kushner, 24.) Why does it happen to some and not to others? Do we not all need to learn to be more sensitive and watchful?

It Was an Appropriate Time. In a village where the people had to cross a deep ravine over a temporary rope bridge, five people lost their lives when the rope broke. Someone noticed that with each of the five people who died each had just resolved a problematic situation in their lives and was beginning anew. Since this was a new beginning for them, maybe this was an appropriate time for them to die. But for many others, they were just beginning their marriage and family. They were in the midst of good accomplishments. They had not finished up the last project.

Some said that about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was at the height of his career and accomplishments. The night before his death in April, 1968, he made a speech referring to Moses seeing the Promised Land from the mountaintop. Some thought that he was talking about his own coming death. He died at an appropriate moment. Better to die at the top than living out his years as a "has been" or as a rejected prophet.

God has a specific plan for every life. Others simply resign themselves to some overall plan that God has for each life. We may not fully know all the details of that plan, but we should trust God that such exists. Recently we discussed the false notion of "the private will of God." For a full discussion of this view, see Decision Making and the Will of God by Garry Friesen, 1980. Can you accept the idea that God planned for a certain number of children to fall out of cars, to be run over by cars, to have cancer, to be sexually abused and killed, to die of starvation?? I cannot. This is simply another way some try to make sense of innocent suffering.

Some religions have a strong tradition of teaching that God wills everything that happens. John Calvin wrote, "Not a drop of rain falls but at the express command of God."