Each evening, after a busy day of baby care, Katy, Hans and I have enjoyed meaningful conversation in the sitting room. Nate’s absence has been keenly felt, especially by me, knowing how he loved to chat. He had been thrilled with our two visits to England in 2007 and 2009, reveling in the lengthy history of the country (which he’d studied) and delighting in the happiness of his fifth-born, who’d married well and loved living here. Coming without Nate this year is bittersweet. Had he lived (without cancer), we’d have been on this trip together.
A year ago, when we came for the christening of Nicholas Carl, Nate’s back was at its peak of pain. The medicine we’d brought along wasn’t holding him, and Katy’s mother, a nurse, had worked hard to secure something stronger. I look back and admire him for bearing up as he did under such incredible pain.
He participated 100% in the many family activities of that visit, sightseeing excursions, group meals, parties, hikes in the country, film-watching and Easter services. He never once voiced a complaint.
What do people do who must live with serious pain every day? I understand that the medical specialty of “pain management” has sprung up in recent years as a result of so many living open-endingly with unresolved pain.
Nate was in a small group at church years ago with a friend who’d been in a near-fatal car accident. Although he didn’t die that day, in the ensuing years he wished he had. After his doctors told him they’d done all they could, he was left with pain so overwhelming that even under the tutelage of pain management experts, he couldn’t manage. Eventually he ended the pain by ending his life.
My dear friend’s adult daughter also suffers from severe, never-ending pain after a car crash, having tried every trick in every book for relief. As I read her blog (www.NourishingCourage.com) I get a small glimpse of life with excruciating physical pain. Just absorbing her words makes my head begin to hurt. What must it be like for her?
All of us can bear pain if we know it has an end. We endure childbirth, injury, chemotherapy or surgery because eventually we know we’ll get past them. If any one of them lasted open-endedly, bearing up under such pain would be unthinkable.
The misery of pain is compounded by our unanswered questions to God: Why must I suffer? Why won’t you end it? Why does it have to be me?
Nate’s multiple spine problems (arthritis, stenosis, multiple bulging disks, bone spurs, sciatica) could never have been fully corrected by surgery. Before being told he had cancer, he was scheduled for micro-surgery that would provide some relief…”for now,” as the doctor put it. Fairly quickly the pain would have resumed. No surgeon could tell him otherwise.
Once he learned of the fatal cancer, his back surgery was cancelled. Although he had fast-growing tumors in his pancreas, lung, liver, joints, bones, blood and throughout his abdomen, his spinal pain overwhelmed all of that until the very end.
Nate was plucked from this world and released from his chronic suffering through death. In one sense, then, his terminal cancer was God’s loving gift. But surely God has a significant purpose for the pain he suffered and for that of those who must live without knowing the end it. Not understanding that purpose can be as debilitating as the pain itself.
Just as God has a specific purpose in mind for someone’s ongoing pain, he has a good reason for keeping that purpose from being known. He also has the power to heal the whole mess. After that happens, the reason for it all might become clear. But even if not, there is no doubt that human agony is important to God, a mystery to our understanding, but never to his.
“The riches and glory of Christ are for you… And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.” (Colossians 1:27)
A wonderful secret, indeed. The power of the Resurrection, that raised Jesus from the dead, is the same power that lives in me to give me victory not just for eternity, but every day. For many years I just thought salvation was about eternity. I am so thankful I understand more of “the secret” now.
The thought of pain makes me shudder. But it also makes me appreciate that I was bought with a price, the precious blood, agony and shame of Jesus. I pray for those in physical and/or emotional pain who read your blog. And I continue to pray for you, Margaret. Have a “cuppa” for me!
Thank you for today’s words of wisdom. Charles Swindoll wrote,
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude … I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our Attitudes.
Margaret, you nailed it! Christ lives in you …. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.” (Colossians 1:27)
Nate was a testimony to Colossians 1:27 and of Charles Swindoll’s words. Nate is an example for all of us.
Amen to all the above! I am one who has lived with the unpredictability of mild to severe fibromyalgia for almost twenty years now. It has brought me closer to the Lord and more dependable on the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. There is a scripture and a song which have become my favorites:
“Be still and KNOW that I am God” Ps. 46:10
“In Him, we move and breathe and have our being”
I am learning to praise God during the rough days with the hope that it is only a cycle as well as the days when I wake up feeling really good and ask for help to not overdo.
Amen to all of the above; I, too, during my almost 73 yrs, have suffered severe back pain, migraines, burnt-out immune system, and one day-several yrs ago…when I cried out to God “why?”…His loving, gentle voice deep within me..said “the deepest most excruciating pain a human can suffer does not go unnoticed by me…but will NEVER compare to the pain my son, Jesus, went through for you…or the pain I felt as He was beaten, scouraged and nailed to a cross with a crown of thorns stuck into his head, speared in His side, and gave His life for the world”. That was the end of MY whining and complaining (not that I really did to others)….but to my heavenly Father, who has healed me of so much, and given me relief when asked…and I have been drawn so much closed to Him in my latter years…even to I still have pains…He’s all I need.
Love you…be blessed.
Hi Margaret,
I think it was C.S. Lewis who wrote of the problem of pain, and that it is an atheist’s best argument… doesn’t mean it’s a good one, just their best one.
I can only be silent when I hear or read of someone in a Job-like situation for which there will be no relief this side of eternity.
“Lord, our decisions matter to You, choosing You against all odds. For those suffering in a multitude of ways, sustain, strengthen, and change them from glory to glory even though seeing through a glass dimly. Amen.”
Love,
Terry