God's faithful brown bag

So, Wednesday night I got woken up from a lovely nap with my newborn daughter to some of the worst pain I've ever experienced. After it had escalated from a 5 to a 9 on the pain scale in about 20 minutes we decided it was time for a trip to the ER. So Mom, her sweet friend and neighbor Maj and I were on our way to the ER and all the sudden I felt horribly nauseous and just knew I was going to throw up. And I did.

Ok, back up to the day before. Mom and I were running errands and decided to get a treat for Isaac while we were running around. We were throwing away our trash from the Sonic run and I couldn't find that pesky brown paper bag that all the food had come in and I was so annoyed. Where is that dumb paper bag? I thought to myself, really annoyed that I could never seem to get the car cleaned out to any level of decency. 

Well as I was leaning forward the next day and knowing that I had only seconds before I would have to completely throw up all over my car, there it was. The paper bag. And as hokey and silly as this may sound, in the midst of my pain and the chaos of the moment, the Lord was there, right there in the brown paper bag. All the sudden in the part of my brain that connects to my spirit and my soul--something registered. God is here. In the chaos, going before me in ALL the details, including this paper bag. 

My untidy loose ends are His tidy ones. His sovereign order at work in the midst of my disorder. And He is great enough to pay attention to running the universe and make sure that paper bag was where I needed it when I needed it. And if He can go before me in even this, He can go before me in the much more significant much more substantial details of this trial as well. Praise Him that His goodness condescends to the measly mundane details of our lives to prove over and over the greatness of His power.

Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide, in every change He faithful will remain. Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Delivered Through the Fire, not from It

A View from the Inside of Suffering

I was sitting in church yesterday listening to an excellent sermon on John 6 about Jesus feeding the multitude and my mind wandered back to the topic of suffering. I got to thinking about the reality of suffering and the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel chapter three.

When these three were asked to bow before the King's Image and they refused, there very posh life in the palace was abruptly over. The king had made it clear that anyone who refused to bow and pay homage to his image would be thrown into the fiery furnace. And these three give an amazingly faith-filled reply, "O Nebuchadnezar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand O King. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." The king then proceeds to do just as he has promised and throws them into the furnace. It seems clear from all outside observation that these men have chosen death. That there is no escape for them. In fact, the officers who were told to take the men to the furnace were killed carrying them up there. Their statement of faith had made the king so angry that he had ordered the fire be made seven times hotter than before. And so they are thrown in as the king looks on, watching to see their certain doom. But a strange thing happens. As he observes this happening, not only do the men not burn up in the fire, but they appear to be loosed of their bonds and walking around. Then he sees an even stranger view: there is a fourth man walking in the fire with them. When he confirms with his officials that they only threw three men in the fire with them he is baffled. It seems that this fourth man even appears to look like the son of the gods. When they take these men out of the fire, not only are they not harmed, their clothes don't even smell of smoke. They actually come out alive, and not only alive but unharmed.

For most of us, when we see someone suffering whether it be from cancer, from the loss of a loved one or from a broken relationship, to the outsider it can seem like nothing but an impossible and devastating situation. All we can see is the immediacy of the danger, the threat to their lives, their happiness and their plans. Its interesting though, I have had the honor of watching a few people go through huge trials and they seem to be unsinged by their fiery trial. It baffled me until I experienced this myself.

Two years ago, the day after Hurricane Ike hit Houston, Mike and I had come to Dallas to escape the aftermath of the hurricane, and I began having a miscarriage. Not sure at first that it was really going to result in the loss of our pregnancy, a very gracious doctor, aware of our situation, fit us in and did a sonogram to check the pregnancy. I remember the doctor after a longer than usual search said, "I'm sorry, I can't find any evidence of a pregnancy" and left the room to give us some time alone. Mike and I were of course flooded with overwhelming sadness and a profound sense of loss. But something very strange happened in that moment as well. A presence entered that room the minute the doctor spoke. It was the presence of the Holy Spirit. I had at once the most overwhelming sense of love and peace and I felt keenly that we were not alone in that room. The Lord was with us. Right in the midst of that horrible loss, I had one of the most amazing experiences of the love of God I have ever known. How that moment in my life could be one of the most clear expressions of God's love is not really something I can explain even today, but it is. And this is what I know, just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego my fire did not destroy me. I was in it. It was real, it was happening, but my Lord was in it with me, and that made all the difference.

I have to remind myself of that when I am tempted to look at the suffering of others in my life. From an outside perspective, there is no upside, no silver lining, just grief and sadness and weight. But when the Lord is in it with you, on the inside of the furnace-- it all looks and feels radically different. That's the thing with suffering, the equation changes when He shows up--every time. Interestingly, the one thing that did burn in the furnace for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego was the ropes that had bound them. That's usually what does get consumed in the fire of our circumstances, and ultimately the fire of God's love...What has bound us. As the writer of Hebrews says, (quoting the Message translation) "Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God Himself is Fire!"

That same passage reads in the NIV, "the words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken--that is the created things--so that what cannot be shaken may remain." This is really what happens in suffering, when we are thrown into the furnace. All that seemed to be so real, so important, and so pressing burns up in the fire of trial, and one thing is clear: He is with us--Emmanuel: God with us. Can we, with these three men of faith, say that our God is able to save us and He will deliver us? It may not be the way we wanted, it may not be delivered from, but delivered through the fire; but He will deliver us.