Suffering: The Common Thread in our Stories

Thursday was Sickle Cell Club at the Nyahuka Health Center. Due to a death in the community, our speaker had to cancel at the last minute, and I found myself with the unique opportunity of sharing about our recent loss and God's presence with us in the midst of our suffering.

"What can I say to this group?" I wondered. They have seen so much more suffering than I can even imagine. They struggle not only with the typical malnutrition, pneumonia, malaria, and diseases that other kids do here, but also with a chronic and stigmatized disease that steals their little lives even earlier than others here. "I can not even relate to what their suffering must be like...my loss seems so much smaller than theirs." As I was thinking about this, and trying to find some common point in which I could relate to their pain, it occurred to me that this was exactly what people have said to me in the past- "I can't even imagine what your life in Africa must be like..." And God reminded me that some of the greatest encouragement I have received since moving here has been from people who have stepped out in faith to encourage us even when they couldn't "relate" to what we were going through.

 And so...I stepped out in faith. 

Unafraid of the tears that would come, I told them about our loss, and about how it was very different from theirs. I don't know what it is like to live with a child with chronic illness, already having lost other children to the same disease. And they don't know what it is like to lose a child when you are far, far from home and family, in a foreign land and feeling alone and isolated from your support group, unable to even give your child a proper burial (a big deal here). But, despite the vast differences that separate us, there is a common thread that connects us:  

We are all suffering.  

There is not one person under the sun, regardless of skin color, status, gender, tribe, money, power, or anything else, that will escape the common experience of grief & loss throughout life. It is a part of the human experience.

While we cannot always relate to other people's suffering because we can never truly know what it is like to "walk a mile in someone else's shoes", there is Someone who can relate to every single experience of suffering on this earth.  
It is Jesus Christ. If you read the Bible and believe that it is the inspired Word of God, then you cannot deny that Jesus Himself was present with the Father at creation, and in the Garden of Eden when the first experience of suffering entered into the world (John 1:1-18). In His omniscience, He knew the ripple effect on all generations that sin entering the world would cause...suffering. and death. and eternal separation from God. for everyone. And in His Sovereign love for the children that He created, He knew that it was impossible for man to repair the relationship that they had severed with Him. Psalms 5:9 & Romans 3:13 tells us that each and every one of us are slaves to sin, and that there are none on this earth who are without it. So, each of us are separated from God by sin which we inherited, but that is also of our own doing, and each of us will experience trials and tribulations while on this earth. Regardless of what that looks like, suffering is a common thread that binds us all (Romans 10:12-13).

Knowing that each of us would be in desperate need of someone else to bridge our relationship back to our Creator, and that there was none on the earth qualified to do that, God Himself did it for us. He left the throne room of heaven, humbled Himself to the form of a helpless baby, lived a life of poverty and rejection, and then suffered the inhumane and humiliating death of a criminal on the cross (Philippians 2:7-8). But that wasn't the biggest part...He wasn't just a man who suffered greatly and injustly. He was the God of the Universe who allowed Himself, the perfect Trinity, to be ripped apart in order for His children to be brought back into the fold of His presence.

And so, while each of us on this earth now have the common experience of walking this road of suffering (in our own ways), we also now have the opportunity of having Hope in the midst of whatever crisis we face. Jesus told His followers that "...in this world you will face trials of many kind, but take heart- I have overcome the world." (John 16:33) What does that mean? That means that the Enemy (the same one who was in the Garden at the beginning of creation, and the same one who whispers the lie in your ear that suffering and pain must mean that God has somehow forgotten about you or really does not love you...) is on a short leash. That leash only extends a certain length and for a certain amount of time. When we have put our trust in Jesus, we are automatically given a Comforter in the form of the Holy Spirit, who walks with us (literally, carries us at times), and who comforts us during our times of grief. This does not mean that we in some way escape pain and suffering in this world. On the contrary, there is often more pain, suffering, and sacrifice when following Jesus because His life was a life of suffering. If we want to look like Him, then there is just no getting around it. But, when we suffer as Christians, we can wholeheartedly say that "we are afflicted in every way, but we are not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested..."
(2 Cor 4:8-10)

So, it really doesn't matter that I don't fully understand the plight of a parent living in Bundibugyo caring for a child with Sickle Cell Disease, or that they don't understand what it is like to lose a child in a foreign country, far away from my family. It doesn't matter that people back home will never fully understand what my life in Uganda really looks like, just like I won't fully understand what it looks like to face cancer, or job loss, or loss of an adult child, or something like needing a kidney transplant. We don't have to fully understand each other in order to acknowledge each others' grief and grasp hands in our common unity of suffering. Jesus understands them both, and stands perfectly between us and the throne room of heaven, making a way for us to again experience ultimate peace even when tears of anguish are streaming down our face.

And for that I am thankful. 

I hope you are too.