I find it hard to sleep again tonight due to a wrestling
match in which I have yet again engaged. Not so much with the problem of evil,
(though I have a lot more to write on that subject at a later date) but rather
I have a problem of empathy. I feel intense unrest when I hear a story of
suffering, and tonight, I find myself going, once again, through a prayerful
process of regaining peace. Writing it out helps the process seem more concrete
and perhaps someone else can benefit from it as well. To fully explain the
process I must tell you the story of how it came about.
A few days after my son was born, I was sitting up in bed late at night browsing the internet while he slept beside me. I came across a news article about a baby boy who had died of neglect. I won't share the details, but my mind, swimming with newly acquired maternal instinct, began to grieve and panic for this child. I wanted to run to this other baby, the one beyond helping, and comfort him. I imagined a hundred times the boy's last days and hours and minutes. Felt for him the pain and fear. Looking at my beautiful little boy sleeping so soundly curled up against my warmth, it was just so sickeningly unfair and I just couldn't handle it.
I called my husband upstairs and tried to explain but he couldn't quite understand why I was so upset when nothing like that could possibly happen to our son. The problem wasn't that I was worried about my baby. The problem was that I had only just then gained the capability of understanding just how terrible an infant's suffering was and I couldn't get over it. I didn't want to get over it. I began to pray and realized I didn't want distraction, didn't want to forget that little boy or any detail of what he went through. I needed a way to cope with a level of tragedy I had never before had the capacity to experience.
After a while, I could hear God's voice calmly work its way into my desperate thoughts. "I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
I didn't need to fix what I knew. I didn't need to forget or justify. I needed to remember that all of the horror and tragedy and pain in this world is not the end of the story.
The world is full of sin, tragedy, pain, and fear. Christ has overcome the world.
I don't mean these things callously and I hope they will not come across that way, but what I saw that night was that the sufferings in this world lose their power in eternity. No human justice can make things like that child's death right. But in the eternal Kingdom, Satan has already been defeated. Tragedy has already been eradicated. Justice has already been established for all of the injustice we find here.
In the world you will have trouble. Terrible things will happen. You can't forget them or ignore them. They are unavoidable truths. But take heart. Be at peace. Because this world will fade. Because darkness and suffering have been defeated at the foot of the cross and at the open door of the empty tomb. The weak and innocent will have justice. Pain will no longer be remembered. And we will finally understand all of the things that we are simply too small to be able to make sense of now.
The work of the world has already been overcome, but it still seems unfair, still makes me sad. I'm still too small to understand a lot of things. I'm still too small for an eternal way of thinking to come easily. But I strive to trust God who is quite a bit bigger than I am. So I’m going to try and to get some sleep now remembering that this world has been overcome and these burdens are light in the hands of God.
A few days after my son was born, I was sitting up in bed late at night browsing the internet while he slept beside me. I came across a news article about a baby boy who had died of neglect. I won't share the details, but my mind, swimming with newly acquired maternal instinct, began to grieve and panic for this child. I wanted to run to this other baby, the one beyond helping, and comfort him. I imagined a hundred times the boy's last days and hours and minutes. Felt for him the pain and fear. Looking at my beautiful little boy sleeping so soundly curled up against my warmth, it was just so sickeningly unfair and I just couldn't handle it.
I called my husband upstairs and tried to explain but he couldn't quite understand why I was so upset when nothing like that could possibly happen to our son. The problem wasn't that I was worried about my baby. The problem was that I had only just then gained the capability of understanding just how terrible an infant's suffering was and I couldn't get over it. I didn't want to get over it. I began to pray and realized I didn't want distraction, didn't want to forget that little boy or any detail of what he went through. I needed a way to cope with a level of tragedy I had never before had the capacity to experience.
After a while, I could hear God's voice calmly work its way into my desperate thoughts. "I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
I didn't need to fix what I knew. I didn't need to forget or justify. I needed to remember that all of the horror and tragedy and pain in this world is not the end of the story.
The world is full of sin, tragedy, pain, and fear. Christ has overcome the world.
I don't mean these things callously and I hope they will not come across that way, but what I saw that night was that the sufferings in this world lose their power in eternity. No human justice can make things like that child's death right. But in the eternal Kingdom, Satan has already been defeated. Tragedy has already been eradicated. Justice has already been established for all of the injustice we find here.
In the world you will have trouble. Terrible things will happen. You can't forget them or ignore them. They are unavoidable truths. But take heart. Be at peace. Because this world will fade. Because darkness and suffering have been defeated at the foot of the cross and at the open door of the empty tomb. The weak and innocent will have justice. Pain will no longer be remembered. And we will finally understand all of the things that we are simply too small to be able to make sense of now.
The work of the world has already been overcome, but it still seems unfair, still makes me sad. I'm still too small to understand a lot of things. I'm still too small for an eternal way of thinking to come easily. But I strive to trust God who is quite a bit bigger than I am. So I’m going to try and to get some sleep now remembering that this world has been overcome and these burdens are light in the hands of God.
This is a good piece on eternal perspective. It is good for Christians to acknowledge the limits of human justice. It is necessary for us to do so in order to recognize that only God's justice acting in eternity will make all things right in the end. We must cling to that eternal perspective if we are to be like Christ and overcome the troubles of this world.
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