I'm welcoming Susan Black to the blog today to share her insights in our occasional series called In Her Shoes. Susan is a writer, teacher, counselor, and pastor's wife. She and her husband have three grown sons and one daughter-in-law. She is the author of Marriage is Hard: Truths I Wish I Had Understood Before I Got Married. I know you will be blessed by her words, just as I was.
Years ago, my
husband Rob and I were having dinner with friends who were retired after decades
in pastoral ministry. We were talking about the challenges of church planting
and enjoying the wisdom we were able to glean from this experienced and godly
couple.
The husband made
a statement that I have never forgotten. He said that our prayers are often no
more than a personal wish list for God, and that what we’re actually praying is
this: “Please God, take away my trials so
that I don’t have to need You or grow up.” We all laughed, but I knew
immediately that his assessment was true, and that I was a culprit.
It was during
this time that I spent many nights pleading with God to take his seizures away.
I have known no trial as great as watching my child suffer. During one
particularly distressing night, I begged God to take my son’s seizures away and
to give them to me. I didn’t think I could bear watching him suffer another
night.
God spoke gently
and firmly to my heart: “Susan, you have
prayed since he was born for Philip to be a godly man. Do you want Me to take
away the very instrument I am using to accomplish this purpose? Do you want a
son with no seizures or do you want a son who loves Me with his whole heart?”
I got it! And I
remembered the words of our pastor friend. My prayers for my son had been nothing
more than, “Lord, please take this trial
away from us so that we don’t have to suffer.”
Instead of
answering my prayer, God taught us all lessons of grace: that His peace abides much deeper than
our fears; that His will is eternal and purposeful; that His grace is sufficient,
and that His strength is made powerful in our weakness; that this world is not
our home, and that we shouldn’t cling to it so insistently.
I recently read
this quote on a friend’s Facebook page:
“The sufferings of Jesus show us
that pain comes to us not as punishment, but rather as a testing ground for
faith that transcends pain. In
truth, pain redeemed impresses me more than pain removed.”
This was our
experience. My son’s suffering was redeemed by a gracious God Who loves us too
much to remove the suffering until it has accomplished His purposes. Difficult? Yes. Would we go
back to who we were before the suffering?
Never!
In A Path Through Suffering, author Elisabeth Elliot says: “Eternal
life means knowing God. All our
life on earth is designed to facilitate that. But knowing Him must include sharing His sufferings by
reproducing the pattern of His death. Instead of seeking first for escape from
suffering, the soul hungry to know Christ will seek in it the means to know Him
better.”
Jesus taught us
how to pray in the Garden: “Father, if
this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done.” It’s a
tremendously difficult prayer to pray, but in response to this prayer, God is
faithful to further His work of heart transformation in us, helping us to see
Him more clearly and to experience a deeper and more
steadfast peace as our will is surrendered more fully to His perfect and holy
purposes.
