My granddaughter is inconsolable today, crying her 7-year-old eyes out. She came out to check on her bunny and found that it had gone to bunny glory. She’d had it for less than a year and to be honest, since she moved to the country recently and got a couple of cats, she’d spent less and less time with the bunny. When she found it lifeless, though, she was absolutely crushed.
It would be easy to tell her to get some perspective, to recognize the suffering all around her and to see that in the grand scope of things, one little bunny doesn’t matter all that much. I was crying a few moments ago because a niece posted a picture of my late father and my very ill mother. A good friend just lost his father yesterday. America’s pandemic is exploding and we are seeing record numbers of people falling to this plague. How can a little bunny match up to the suffering in this world.
So, what did we do? Did we tell her to grow up, to get some perspective, to realize that her bunny was no big thing compared to the terrible things going on in the world? No, we consoled her and grieved with her and tried to help her in any way we could. Because we love her, her suffering matters to us no matter how small it may be in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, God is not going to tolerate or enable us to become self-absorbed and self-pitying people who fail to look beyond our own sufferings to think about others, but he is a loving Father who cares about our needs and our hurts. We matter to him.
This has been an awful year for me in so many ways. I am not sure it helps to enumerate my sufferings, but I could list several including dad’s death, mom’s impending homegoing, a harrowing battle with COVID, and ministry struggles that left me burned out and discouraged.
I have had many people tell me that the ministry struggles I am experiencing are common across the land in the COVID era. I realize that I am not alone nor are my sufferings the worst. Others have gotten sicker, have things worse than I do, have been hit harder than I have. I know it is true.
But thankfully, my heavenly Father doesn’t say to me, “Stop crying, Dave. Grow up, get some perspective and realize others have it worse.” He cares about what I am going through and ministers grace to me where I am.
We minister weekly to hurting people. I am overwhelmed Sunday by Sunday at the amount of pain in the membership of Southern Hills. There is hardly a family not facing a major crisis. It is easy when faced with all of those mountains to ignore the molehills of suffering people face. God doesn’t do that and neither should we.
I need the heart of love that I have for my granddaughter toward every part of the Body of Christ.
I did not really know how to respond to this post but a passage of scripture came to my mind that I often find comforting during times of struggle: 2 Corinthians 4:17 “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” I am sure as a Pastor you already know this verse, but I think it helps to hear it from someone else on occasion.
One of my favorites. That and Romans 8:18.
Good word Dave. I don’t comment often, but thanks.
Thank you for sharing this story and your compassionate insights.
I have encouraged our senior adults to call each other to check on and encourage one another. Pastors should do the same.
2020 has been painful. There’s little comfort in comparing our pain with someone else, but we pray that God helps you/us to bear the painful struggle. Sharing one’s burden with others can bring/involve us together, certainly in prayers and encouragements. 2 verses to add to the ones already shared: Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the word of Christ. And 2 Corinthians 7:6-7 But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus; and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing,… Read more »
As the mom of a 7 year old daughter who still teared up when talking last week about our beagle that died two years ago, and who I watched as tears welled up in her eyes Saturday at my papas funeral before I had my husband take her and my son out, this post hits home in a very strong way. If I had the reaction to others as I do for these little 7 year old girls, even the one I haven’t met, my heart would be perpetually broken for the hurting and needs of others. And I would… Read more »