“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” King Solomon – Proverbs 4:23
I sat down next to my friend and put my arm around her. To say that she looked awful would be an understatement. Her blotchy face and asthmatic sounding gasps were only a few of the physical symptoms of her grief. Her shoulders rose and fell with the sounds of sadness and I struggled with how best to comfort her. When I tried to put my arms around her, she flinched. When I leaned away to give her space, she grabbed my hands to pull me close. She opened her mouth to speak but no words formed. It was as if her lips were the gateway to a pit of anguish so deep that not even a single plea for assistance could escape.
A mockingbird has recently taken up residence near my home. She has been visiting the suet feeder that hangs outside my kitchen window. This bird is curious and intelligent, so unlike the boisterous Starlings who fight and screech for a mouthful of food. The mockingbird delicately scoops each bite through her beak even as she casts a furtive glance in our direction. She is wary but wise; knowing exactly when to fly away when we get too close.
This morning I let my boxer dogs out into the backyard before dawn and startled her. But instead of flying away she held her ground. She perched on the chain link fence—well within reach of those dogs—and squawked with all her might. She seemed to say, “This is my backyard and you are interrupting my breakfast!” I stepped back; fearful that she might try to prove her point by attempting to peck out my eyes. I marveled over her feisty behavior. What courage!
In the book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl writes, “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.” He then writes about the longing he experienced for his young wife as he languished inside the concentration camp. “Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.”
He then wrote something I found to be very profound. “A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: the salvation of man is through love and in love.”
Viktor Frankl’s wife perished in a death camp and he never saw her again, but he wrote one of the most important books about finding meaning through suffering that has been written.
My friend confessed to me that she had given up on life and I knew I had to response. I could not say something cheery like, “Now, now. It’ll be all right” or “Come, My Dear. Don’t you know the sun will come out tomorrow?” Her tears were filled not only with salt, but with frustration, bitterness, and despair. She looked to me for an answer and I knew her life depended on what I had to say.
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:6-8
The Apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans on his missionary journey to Corinth with the help of a man named, Tertius. Its main objective was to show that salvation may be procured by the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ. So what does this mean for my friend, whose heart is broken—seemingly beyond repair?
If we believe the bible is true, we learn upon reading it that Jesus was God. His love for humanity knew no bounds. He had a beautifully perfect, imperishable body, but he gave that up to become human. He walked among us, entered into our suffering, and eventually died in order that we might be saved from eternal death; separation from God forever because of our sin (unbelief). He did this because he knew we could not save ourselves. Put simply; he did this because he loved us.
I often take this kind of love for granted. I think to myself, “Jesus was God. It was easy for him to suffer.” But this is not actually true. It took immeasurable courage to give up an immortal body and to put on a perishable body that got sick, felt cold and heat, experienced pain and sadness, and was eventually tested with the worst kind of physical pain imaginable. Because He did this, we can experience His help and comfort in times of pain, sorrow, grief, and most importantly, death. He knows our weakness and His desire is to save us from it.
I sat next to my friend and tried to hold her while she pulled away. How does one console a friend whose hurts are this tremendous? How does one speak truth when the words are like spitting rain on a forest fire of pain? How does one breathe life into lungs that can’t catch their breath?
We weep and we pray and we tell the truth.
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
John 11:25-26
I spoke this truth to her with all the ferocity of the mockingbird. And then I wept and prayed some more.
Vikto Frankl wrote, “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Each of us has a choice to make when the waves of suffering overwhelm us. We can choose death or we can choose life. Many of us choose an anesthetic, thinking distraction will make the fundamental problem go away. Alas, to make no choice at all is to choose death. Because if we do not choose Jesus, we can never truly live.
My friend’s story is still in progress. I continue to watch, wait, and pray. Maybe she will even read this and find courage that compels her not to quit. I hope so. And until then, I will sing like the Mockingbird.
One of the most difficult concepts for people in pain. The solution is to trust in Jesus but how to trust what we cannot see and think we have never experienced. The Words of Michael Card’s song come to me.
To hear with my heart, to see with my soul,
To be guided by a hand I cannot hold,
To trust in a way that I cannot see
That’s what faith must be.
Faith. The Bible tells us it is a gift (like salvation) It isn’t something we can conjure up in our own strength but we can ask for it. We see people ask Jesus to help their unbelief. Even as believers we have to ask that sometimes. I don’t think there is much that is more difficult than to try to give lessons we have already learned to someone else. The best we can do is pray for God to provide what they need since we can’t. And offer love. He is the great physician and healer. He has all the resources. And He loves to give freely but he likes to be asked. So for those who don’t know how or can’t ask for themselves, we pray.