On Thursday morning, December 14, 2017, I sat in a medical clinic waiting room suffering and greatly desiring relief. My wonderful wife, Jennifer, had driven me to the clinic and was doing all of my paperwork for me. Even though she gave up her career as a registered nurse to homeschool and raise our three girls, she still has a nurse’s heart, especially when it comes to her family.
My symptoms had appeared over two days earlier, but the worst of them had been during the preceding 24 hours. My fever had gone as high as 102°F. Due to the fever, my back hurt severely enough to remind me of the pain I’ve felt there preceding a kidney stone attack; though, I could tell it wasn’t the same. I had tremendous coughing fits and experienced a terrible itch that felt like it was in my lungs but would not go away. During this sickness (which the doctor treated as the flu), I felt my worst on this Thursday morning.
As I sat there in the waiting room assuming that I had bronchitis or pneumonia (and I’ve had both before, but not this time), I imagined the doctor telling me I had some terminal condition and that my symptoms would only worsen until I finally succumbed to my disease ultimately suffocating or drowning from pneumonia. But I knew this romantic fate wasn’t my present reality. My imagination was unhindered by my illness; rather, it may have been fueled by my self-pity.
Slightly wallowing in my suffering, I was suddenly reminded of people I know and have known who have truly experienced the suffering about which I was selfishly fantasizing. I thought of Bro. Mask, a member of my church family at Cedar Grove United Pentecostal Church; he has visited death’s door numerous times and struggles for every breath he takes. I thought of my maternal grandmother (Granny to me); I watched her pass from this life struggling for her last breath as she surrendered to pneumonia among other respiratory conditions. I also thought of another precious church member, Sis. Miller, who endures chronic pain. And there are many others (too many to name them all), some of which I know and love, who suffer far more than I ever have suffered. In that moment, I was flooded with emotion; and my tears began to flow as I thought of and prayed for those who suffer more than I. Their illnesses can’t be cured with a simple shot and a round of prescription medications, but I knew I was going to feel better before long.
As I cried and prayed for those who are hurting more than I was, something amazing happened. I felt better. That insatiable itch in my lungs abated. I experienced actual, literal, physical relief while I cried and prayed for them. I’m not one that can turn on the waterworks at will, and I couldn’t keep them going for very long. And when they stopped, my uncomfortable symptoms returned. But while I wept for someone else, my pain faded.
We are bombarded these days with messages promoting selfishness, self-absorption, self-actualization, self-expression, etc. Social media lies to us by offering meaningful connection while actually cheapening our connections and isolating us from real relationships in order to turn us into something akin to lab rats that click their ads, buy their products, and play their games intentionally and intelligently designed to be addictive. We are taught to look inward, love me, do what’s best for me, and do what feels good. These philosophies are not of God.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9
Human philosophy says that you must first have something before you can give it, but divine understanding reveals that you must give something before you can receive it. Earthly wisdom teaches that winners must get ahead of everyone else in the race regardless of the collateral damage, but heavenly wisdom teaches that the first will be last and the last first (Matt. 19:30; 20:16; Mark 9:35; 10:31; Luke 13:30).
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Luke 6:38
True fulfillment can only be found in fighting for the fortune of another. Pain may be relieved only by one’s binding the wounds of someone else. Complete healing can only come to those who give it. The fullness of salvation cannot be savored until one has gone into the fields weeping and “bearing precious seed” (Ps. 126:6). This is the Solace of Weeping.
