Month: November 2016

Poor, Suffering Me

In the About a Dozen Years Ago series… 

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about “poor.”

Those poor kids in Aleppo. Especially the economically poor.

The poor people in this video by (the incomparable) Wilbur Sargunaraj.

But this isn’t really going to be a post about those people. No. For, these days, I am the Great Sufferer. At least that’s what my feelings tell me. The days of being comfortably ensconced within organizational payroll tick down as all thoughts about “the poor” become suddenly about me. (Though it must be noted that up to this point my lidded panic has only the theoretical to engage—nothing has happened.) Still, most days I cannot shake this macabre pall of apprehension weighing down my mind: “Provision” or “More suffering”?  What lies ahead?

But if I can’t trust him now, what was I trusting in before? Salary, benefits, and investments, apparently? What else would explain this unrest?

As to those everywhere worse off than me (and goodness, the planetary percentage is staggering) I find that for the most part their suffering doesn’t do a thing in regards to lessening my sense of mine. Sure, it might make me more grateful (especially this week), but as to making my suffering feel like “not suffering”? Almost never.

If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he himself will cry out and not be answered.

-Proverbs 21:13

 

Rich and poor have this in common. The Lord is the maker of them all.

-Proverbs 22: 2

Leafing through old journals today, I came across an entry reflecting on both of those verses. The entry (from today’s date a dozen years ago, 2004—still in language school and all of China still ahead of us) also included:

Lord, I want to commit to always having packages of food in the car when we go downtown. We—I—have no idea how to respond to the poor because they’ve always been so conveniently removed from my life. I prayed with Tammy last night that you teach us and show us how.

As I recall, dry noodles, maybe crackers, sometimes meat sticks.

Apparently you’ll have to seek out grander blogs than this for ideas about engaging global social issues.

I’ve got passing out ramen on the streets of Xi’an 12 years ago.

Not exactly blipping the philanthropic radar. But, on the other hand, eyes and ears were opening when before they’d been shut. Perhaps the greatest blessing to be found in suffering is in sharing suffering. Even now, I can picture some of those individuals (and others throughout our years in China). Even today, remembering that personal participation in sharing theirs, my suffering diminishes.

How will you initiate sharing in someone’s suffering today?

Surprised by Love

It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t remember a day I hadn’t thought, “Man, I can’t stand this kid.” Or cried out to God asking why He had to give him to us in the first place.

“Jesus, I just don’t want Everett anymore…  I can’t take this.”

It was Unpleasantness never going away. Never, ever affording us a break.

That can wear on a soul.

My only feeling prior to a most recent three-day weekend? Dread.

Not that he was, in the big scheme of things, a shoe-in to rise to that status of “top stressor.” We’ve had our share of other common major stressors of late.

Any one of: cultural re-entry OR endless living out of suitcases OR moving (four times) OR enrolling one’s kids in three new schools OR starting over in a new state OR switching careers OR looming unemployment could have risen to the top. But they didn’t. (Our life has that whole list, by the way.) Even concurrently they failed to ever oust Everett from the top.

He was more difficult than everything else put together in an unusually difficult summer.

In a season of tears, nothing had brought more tears than he had.

Finally, this past weekend, a break.

Not a long one, mind you. Not even the whole weekend. Just a one-day conference, six-and-a-half hours. Three speakers and a musician talking about the Deeper Life. The registration webpage had called to us so loudly we knew we had to go, even at five-and-a-half hours away.

It was too short a trip to be called a getaway, but it felt like one to us just the same. Long enough to take a few deep breaths. A chance, after running, running, running since spring, to renew a bit. Recharge some. Rest from Everett and retreat from the grind, if only for some hours.

“God, please meet with us.”

“God, restore us.”

The only problem with prayers like that is that I never know what God might decide to bring up. It might not be what I expect or want (case in point).

Sure enough, God spoke—gently, subtly, constantly—but (at first to my disappointment) almost exclusively about Everett.

My “love” for Everett was exposed as no love at all. I’d always been patient with him, sure. Good to him. Kind. Helpful with all his needs during emotional outbursts. Protective, insulating him from the harm that his tantrums directed even at his own self.

But I saw that for weeks I’d been insulating him from something else, too.

Myself.

I wasn’t for him. Not fully, not really. I said all the right things, but I wasn’t deeply hoping and longing for him to be put back together, I was secretly longing for my pre-Everett life and wanting that back.

That isn’t love.

Then, in contrast to my weak shortcomings, I saw God’s love for Everett. His desire for redeeming all the trauma. For healing and binding up that broken heart. Restoring shatteredness.

And the vessel for His love?

Me.

All along it was supposed to have been being me.

I’d become more of a reservoir for resentment. Openly bemoaning the weight of his existence on my life as his exhaustless neediness pushed my despair ever deeper.

I may have known truths in my head, but I’d proven powerless, not to mention disinterested, in scraping up any better.

Frankly, I needed rescuing.

And that’s what I got.

Coming back from that conference, I saw him with new eyes. I could now see this much truer version of someone I’d quit trying to see through God’s eyes at all.

A week ago I was failing absolutely to love him, but now I am not. I actually want to love one very unlovable (in my strength) kid. And, color me shocked, he himself IS so much more lovable, dare I almost say easy to love? I wouldn’t have expected that part. I truly was handed a supernatural, kingdom, other-than-me love.

Everett is not beyond hope.

And neither am I.