Charla Shaffer | Irresistible Hope Ministries
I wrote the following on a day, perhaps even during a Holy Week, when I was contemplating what it looked like to be in relationship with Jesus and how He understood the pain of losing my daughter, Hope. I included a condensed version of it in my book, Letters to Hope: How One Mom Coped with the Unthinkable. As Nick and I build relationships with grieving and hurting people through our ministry, Irresistible Hope, we find that one of the questions that comes up over and over is, “Where is God in my suffering?” It is our honor to point them to Jesus who intimately understands suffering and is present with them in it. This is the hope that we all have to offer, a hope we celebrate this month during Holy Week. Perhaps it will encourage you as you help those that God brings across your path.
The road marked with suffering. We don’t like it one bit. We avoid it, run from it, turn away from it, but there it is looming square in front of us. Where are the detours? Where are the exits? Where is the escape? We desperately do not want to walk down this heartbreaking, gut-wrenching road. “Please, God, no, take this away!” we cry out. And yet we see no relief from the crushing load of suffering we bear on this way. Ironically, this is when we find Him the most. Through the pain, through the sorrow, through the grief, through the suffering, He is there. For me and for you.
He is no stranger to this road. He is intimately familiar with it. His own road of suffering was marked with betrayal, thorns, unjust accusations, ridicule, whips, nails, and death on a torture device – the once ugly, but now beautiful cross. He did this for you and for me.
Did he want to shrink back? Find a detour? You bet He did. He asked for this cup to be taken from Him. And yet, He surrendered Himself to this road of suffering. For you and for me.
So when we face our own road of suffering, when the crushing sorrow and pain come, when life is dark and it’s hard to breathe, and our steps slow to an excruciatingly tedious, soul-crushing pace, what do we do? We turn to Him, the One who knows. The One who knows the pain, the One who knows the sorrow, the One who understands the burden of walking this road like no one else can. The One who identifies with us in our suffering. What other good choice is there, but to lean on the One who has been here before us? To trust in His goodness and His ability to see us through.
We all wish our road of suffering would end in a resurrection just like His or at least with something just as spectacularly suffering–relieving. We have no promise for the end of suffering here on this evil-tainted earth. But we do have choices with what we do with it. Will we look for the good in the middle of all the bad? Will we allow it to change us for the better, to be more compassionate to those who are also suffering? Or will we become bitter and self-absorbed? Will it help us to become more like Him? Will we become persevering people full of hope? Hope that one day the end of suffering will come, and we will see the One-Who-Suffers-With-Us face to face in that perfect place. Will it all be worth it then? I think it will, as we are embraced by those hands that still bear the marks of suffering, knowing that He took the largest portion for Himself, and walked with us the entire time. For you and for me.
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