CHAPTER 12 "The Sparrow Still Falls"

  Firstly, these next posts are not recommended for everyone.

It is somewhat graphic as I will tell of some of the darkest seasons in our young marriage. This post answers questions about pain and suffering that some, if honest, would be very content and intent to remain as distant unreachable unknowns. Because sometimes we humans prefer an altered, blurred, and even inaccurate view of suffering if it leaves the rest of what we believe about life, intact. We can sometimes find ourselves forcing our beliefs and world views to make sense; even at the cost of misplacing truths about the darker side of life. 

Suffering forces you to ask questions best left swept under the rug of ignorance.

Ignorance is a luxury not easily given up.

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I apologize for the time span in between my latest posts. This writing gap is for positive reasons as many of you know that my wife Christa has been improving slowly but surely, over the last 12 months. My fingers feel lighter than they used to in previous posts. I can feel myself, and Christa and I as a couple, begin to catch our breath after swallowing water while almost drowning for so long. There are still some scary days along the way and even a couple more ambulance rides this summer, but overall she is doing so much better. I am working more and more in my real estate career and really enjoying it.

 We have moved back into Vernon from the golf resort Predator Ridge, and Christa and I have been able to set up home in our condo for really, the first time in our marriage. Our honeymoon 4 years ago got cut short for health reasons, and since then there has been very, very long dark days and nights. But as Christa's body finally begins to heal, we find ourselves in a brand new chapter of life. It has not been the celebration we thought it would be. We have endured too much, and have been scarred too deeply to celebrate the way we would have if her sickness had only lasted a few weeks. When thousands of hours of torture have crawled by, even if you survive, you can only shuffle and stumble your way out of the suffering into the light of brighter days. If you have ever seen actual film footage of the few survivors of Dachau, or Auschwitz being liberated by the Allied troops, you would see that they are not cheering or clapping as they are being freed. They carry the blank stares of shock from enduring unspeakable evil. They will never be the same again. This is how Christa and I feel. Yes, we are now free from our prison and life is so sweet, but some scars are permanent and serve as a reminder of what we endured. 

 I have no intention of bringing my blog writings to a stop. I have a passion for communicating Truth through words. There is the line of Christian thinking that goes something like this, "Witness at all times, and when necessary, use words." This is a very frighteningly ineffective way to live out one's faith. To think that a mere human is an example worthy of following, is dangerous. As one preacher said jokingly about one neighbour speaking to another, "I noticed there was something different about the way you trim your hedges...What must I do to be saved?!?" 

We are flawed creatures. The primary way to share God's truth, is through words. We are fallible, God's Word is not. 

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      This post is the one I have been wanting to write since I started this blog. Actually it is the one behind why I started writing publicly. It will venture into some of the most shadow-filled places that my heart has been dragged through at the hand of endless suffering and traumatic circumstances. Almost anyone can handle pain for a short time, or maybe even a couple weeks or a month. But there comes a time with prolonged long-suffering when you begin to see, touch, hear, feel, and taste suffering; and little else. And after enough time passes, the word "hope" loses all real meaning, and becomes the concoction of one's own imagination conjured up for the sole purpose of survival. It is in these, and only in these times, when certain questions can be truly approached, answered, and dealt with. 

    So much of life fades into blurred oblivion in the presence of real suffering. If your mind and heart is primarily concerned about things like long hours at work, failing friendships, buying a house, cars, current TV series, knee surgery, getting older, hockey teams, or getting a bad flu, then you cannot stake a claim to real suffering. These things do not even register on the pain scale.

Is there a difference in how we are to handle self-inflicted suffering versus uninvited suffering? I will answer this later, but in self-inflicted emotional and physical pain, you don't need to ask the question "Why?"

   There is nothing that will bring you to the very end of yourself, and a little beyond, more intensely and genuinely that physical suffering. Emotional and spiritual suffering can bring deep grief as well, but they always follow intense physical pain, but not always vice versa.

  Take away your friends, job, and all your worldly possessions, and you may not curse God. Take away your home, relatives, and closest family members, and you may not curse God. But take away your health, and introduce unrelenting agony, and you may curse God as you lose control of your own mind. Just ask Job. Nothing brings you to your emotional and spiritual limit more than suffering.

  It is during these seasons of pain that one can no longer avoid questions and statements such as:

"Where is God?!"

"There's a reason for everything."

"How could a loving God allow such pain?"

"There's so many people praying! Why is the problem not fixed by now?"

"What good can possibly come from this?"
"Is it even worth it to keep going?"

"Whatever doesn't kill you, will make you stronger."

"This must be happening because I'm being punished for something."

"I'm a good person, how can I possibly deserve this? Why me?"

"But if you have enough faith won't God heal you?"

...and the all too famous stand alone question, "Why?"


  Yes, God does care enough about his creation to take note when a sparrow falls to the ground, but we often fail to realize is this: The sparrow is still dead. (Mtt. 10) The fact that Goes knows about our suffering, is not the same as him releasing us from it. So is there genuine purpose and reason to stay the course?


    God does know how many hairs are on our head, but that number may be 0 as maybe chemotherapy is in its later stages. I know God knows this, but it would seem that it is unrelated to how much pain he permits, wills, and signs off on for us to go through. Do I still trust him? I mean really trust Him?

  "And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his convenient with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel - and God knew." (Ex. 2) 
...400 years of Israelites living and dying under the oppression of slavery, with no deliverance. 
    Why is it that, what we often consider to be a happy ending, and what God considers to be a happy ending, seem to be at polar opposites with each other?

  Anguish of heart at such depths offers a rare opportunity to see people, circumstances, life, and God from a perspective that is shockingly authentic and potentially life changing.

  The preliminary question I ask myself about pain is this point of my journey is this: Is my perception of reality I now have from this place of long-suffering accurate? Or merely a delusional viewpoint brought on by countless hours intensely spent in a grief stricken state?

    I will let you draw your own conclusion at the end of this post; but I do hope our story plays some role in your life. Everyone is affected to some degree

Yes, parts of our journey are dark, but without darkness we wouldn't know or truly appreciate what light is. How can one truly enjoy the good of life, without the possibility of the bad? It is this tension that makes our life worth living. As a respected man said: "Should we be asking God's help to take us out of suffering; or to take us through?"

As love grows, so does the capacity for pain. Dying for someone is easy. Living for them is the hard part.

If you are up for it, let's get into Job's head...

To Conquer or to Withstand?

  Just wanted to take a quick side track from the heavier issue of suffering and briefly share something I came across recently.
Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
  This is a Bible verse that is frequently quoted by Christians that implies one can summon a certain type of "strength"; when in reality it may have a different meaning altogether then what some might think.


  This verse could easily bring to mind the idea of a believer who is capable of tackling any project, take charge of a situation, or flex the physical or spiritual muscles on their way to accomplishing what they believe to be God's plan. To be honest this sounds fantastic. To have this spiritual "strength" to summon when needed could definitely have an impact. That may very well be the case at times, but the direct Greek translation this time, is to withstand something. So the verse would then be read like this, "I can withstand all things through him who strengthens me."
   And when you read the entire section of chapter 4 of Philippians this makes much more sense really.


   Now, this meaning would shift its emphasis from the idea of a Christian conquering and overcoming something by the power of God, to that of a supernatural help to endure. To suffer with strength.


 A definition of it goes like this:
a : to stand up against : oppose with firm determination;especially : to resist successfully  b : to be proof against : resist the effect of <withstand the impact of a landing — Current Biography>   archaic : to stop or obstruct the course of


   I personally find this quite interesting, because so often I have the tendency to think that I can accomplish and achieve whatever I think to be right, as long as I do it in God's name. When in reality, it's only because of God that I can accomplish anything righteous or worthwhile. And quite often, the strength that comes from God is best shown not in what we can necessarily do for Him, but in what and how we endure and withstand trials for His name sake.