Suffering... but not really

I took a day off Friday in order to travel to DC with my daughter Gabrielle on her school trip. Today I still feel the effect of a full day of walking all over downtown Washington with four very nice, but active 6th grade girls. I survived – barely – and we had a great time together! And the girls controlled the day. Not only did they choose their chaperone - me - but also the sites they wanted to see. Interestingly, all had a common desire to visit the Holocaust museum!

And the museum visit was moving. For two hours we observed the intricacies of the Holocaust from the rise of Nazi power through the implementation of the Final Solution. And the presentation was descriptive and well thought through. Yet after a time I began to sense a lack of feeling from what I was seeing. By the end of the museum walk most of my initial horror from seeing piles of corpses and the inner workings of the crematorium was gone. And I was amazed at how quickly I could become numb after so vividly being reminded of the gross inhumanity of the Holocaust.

How can I make sense of suffering in this world and how should I respond to it? I am not sure but can offer several thoughts:

• Personally, I have not experienced suffering to any great degree.
• We can become numb to the suffering around us – maybe as a way of ‘dealing’ with its presence by minimizing our consciousness of its reality.
• We can try to avoid the pain that suffering brings. Through the use of just about anything – substances, obsessions, relationships - we can blunt the immediate distress suffering brings. As a resident told me, ‘Steve, sometimes the quick relief (from pain) seems better than the long term consequences of my choices.’

It’s hard to argue with that logic when suffering. And suffering from minor pain or on the scale of the Holocaust doesn’t always make sense even to those of us who claim to follow Christ, the Suffering Servant. Consider what Eugene Peterson writes in the forward to the book, Embracing Brokenness:

"We have somehow ended up with a country full of Christians who consider suffering, whether it comes from a broken body or a broken heart, a violation of their spiritual rights. The only cross they seem to have any acquaintance with is a piece of cheap jewelry. Can anyone get their attention long enough to convince them that suffering must not be avoided, but embraced; that brokenness does not diminish a life of faith but deepens it?"

He asks a good question then proceeds with his comment on suffering:

" … suffering is not evidence of God’s absence, but of God’s presence and that it is in our experience of being broken that God does His surest and most characteristic salvation work. I think that (all) … can be persuaded that there is a way to accept, embrace, and deal with suffering that results in a better life, not a worse one, and more of the experience of God, not less."

"Lord, help me to seek to hear you when I suffer in any way."

-Steve Brubaker, Director of Residential Ministries