With my podcast being about discovering the good God that I profess in the context of pain and suffering, I spend hours and hours looking at trauma and what the God of the Holy Bible offers us in during those times.
I’ve discovered some beautiful things that lift my heart and give me joy for my journey in the here and now, but there’s still one area I want to dig into deeper: The reality that there are some people who—without a supernatural move of God—will not receive healing this side of heaven.
What hope do they have in a life that is racked with pain or limited by a brain injury that has resulted in a vegetive state? What about Alzheimer or dementia patients who are slowly being robbed of all that is familiar to them? Does their suffering matter to God? If it does, why doesn’t He do something about it?
I was recording a podcast episode yesterday, and, while my friend shared many deep things, what lingers with me still was our conversation about those who suffer without any guarantee their situation will ever improve. I’m talking about those who have been pounding on the door of God’s heart for years, looking for a miracle, but He has yet to move that mountain for them.
Meredith Bunting was one of the first women who had the courage to share her story with me when I began my adventure in podcasting. She shared her story of chronic pain that left her often balled up in the fetal position. Once a lively athletic instructor, she was struck down with pain that left her paralyzed and helpless. Whenever the searing pain struck, she was at its mercy for days. Isolated by that pain and listening to Satan telling her she wasn’t strong enough to endure, he taunted her, urging her to end it all by taking her own life.
If you listen to our first podcast together, you’ll hear all the things she tried as a remedy to her excruciating pain. She had no solutions from various doctors, and they gave her no hope for healing. She’d been crying out to the Lord for years and still the mountain hadn’t moved. But just recently, her pain disappeared. Gone. A miraculous healing that has taken her totally by surprise. She’s been adjusting to living without pain.
The reason she and I were talking again is because she just finished a book that will be released in the next couple of months. (I’ll include the info below should you want to preorder it.). In my second recorded podcast episode with Meredith, I asked her a question regarding those who aren’t—and may never—gain any distance from their pain and suffering.
Here’s an abbreviated portion of the transcript for the audio. I responded to something she was saying and used it to set up my question:
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What I hear you saying, and it was my experience, too … after you came out of your traumatic experience, you have a powerful testimony because you know things about God you would not have known in any other context.
But one of the beautiful things about your testimony on our first podcast was that you had praise for your Savior during your pain and suffering. You had no guarantee or promises that your physical condition would change or that it would get better. It makes me think about a friend whose son sustained a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). That’s a praying momma and, while she gets little improvements, I think about what it must be like to persevere in these conditions.
Do you have any encouragement for those who, aside from God moving His hand for a supernatural healing, do not have the promises or guarantees for their situation to change? How can we lift a head or a heart today of someone who will not have the opportunity to get some distance on their reality of pain or a guarantee for a healed outcome?
And here is her response:
Suffering for the Christian is not a disease, loss, or tragedy. It is a crown. At first it is the same twisted thorny twigs gouging the head and face of our Savior.
It is the suffering of Christ, our burden to share, and His promise of redemption. Our only hope in the crucible. The one Hope. He will save us or take us. Win-win.
When the suffering calms, the crown softens to become one of “steadfast love and mercy” (Psalm 103:4), which is the crown He gives that we carry into the world having been convinced of our Lord’s faithfulness, and we bring what we have felt and experienced in our pain to the world where we are now precious missionaries.
Only the suffering servant knows intimately the Suffering Servant.
When the crown of thorns is worn by the believer who God is calling Home, it becomes a radiant and treasured bejeweled headpiece to be worn by the saint who goes to sit with Jesus on His throne with His Father. It is the promised Crown of Life.
For the dying believer, this is the hope and promise for all to see as he takes his last breath.
So, for your friend—rest and trust in God. He is Love and will bring something beautiful from her broken son, and she will wear her crown to make a difference in the suffering of others.
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As I processed her answer, I worked through what she shared: To see suffering as a crown. To know that, when we share in the sufferings of Christ, we experience the gift of God’s presence in the pain and have His acknowledgement of our suffering. To receive His reward either on this side of glory, as we become His missionary in the world to testify to what we now know about Him because of our pain, OR to go home to be in His continual presence. To rest in Him with no more struggle or pain.
That’s so God to waste nothing. Everything is redeemed in His hands.
My friends, when God’s only Son, whom He loved dearly, hung on that wooden cross, God did not withdraw His hand nor did He use His hand to stop His Son’s death. The Word says He did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Romans 8:32). Christ, the spotless Lamb, bore the full force of His Father’s fierce wrath against sin until our debt was paid in full.
Christ comes to us in our pain, shows us the scars on His hands and feet, and says to us, “I see you and I hear the pain in your heart. I’ve been there and I know the way out. Follow Me. I’ll show you the way through.” He’s already walked the road we’re on. He’s felt every gut-wrenching, bone-crushing, sorrow-filled punch we can experience.
We drape ourselves across His shoulders because He knows things about His Father that He wants to show us. He wants to give us all that He made possible for us when we’re in our isolated, barren wilderness of pain. We do not collapse onto someone who is not familiar with where we are. We fall onto the One who not only knows where we are but is the only One who can reach the pain we feel.
What Christ endured on the cross as our Substitute is indeed enough to require that we should suffer. And yet that is not the Father’s heart because He came to set us free from the trappings of this life. Christ suffered with a purpose and so do we.
The beauty of our suffering here is that we’re never alone in it. Christ enters our pain with us. He catches our tears and holds us close. He lets us rest against His chest or safely under His wings.
Without the cross, our sufferings in the here and now have no value whatsoever. There’s no redemption, no hope, no healing, no freedom. It’s just pain that sucks.
But if we take what Christ did on the cross and make it personal, God pierces the lies of our pain and offers us a new way of seeing things, of knowing Him, and of experiencing Him. We find freedom in His truths, peace in His presence, and joy in His healing despite the reality of our pain and suffering.
Be it this side of heaven or His side of heaven, either way, He heals and rewards our sufferings.
Here, He gives us the beauty of His presence and reveals things about Himself that we would not know in any other context. Each strangling grip of pain loses its stronghold on us in the beauty of His presence. God has a remedy for each sucker punch from hell, and it’s all based on who He wants to be for us in it.
As each of us draws near to departing this life, He attends to us here, strategically and purposefully placing jewels in place on our Crowns of Life. When we enter His gates to be with Him eternally, the crown is complete and He places the Crown of Life on our head, saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” An eternal royal reward for our temporary suffering.
Live Loved and Thrive!
Pre-order Meredith’s book for more rich insight to pain and suffering: https://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Pasting-Truth-Snapshots-Through/dp/1631956442/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Cutting+and+Pasting+Truth%2C+Meredith+Bunting&qid=1632229835&sr=8-1
These questions are in no way a substitute for healthcare professionals or any level of professional counseling. I’m an advocate for taking care of oneself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. These questions reflect my heart, NOT my profession.
This questionnaire is an opportunity to journal your thoughts and feelings. It can serve as a launching pad on which to evaluate your heart condition as you understand it. My hope is that you will take the truths you discover about yourself and hold them up to the Light to evaluate them against who God says you are.
- Has God ever let you down? If so, did you talk to Him about it?
- Have you ever felt alone in your pain and suffering? If so, did you call out to God?
- Why do you think God allows bad things to happen to you and others you know?
- Have you experienced God’s comfort during a difficult time in your life?
- Have you ever witnessed or experienced a miracle?
- Has your pain ever caused you to believe a lie about God’s goodness?
Use God’s Word to take control over the traumas in your life. Whenever you feel terrorized by your thoughts take them captive by replacing them with the truth of God’s promises in His Word.
Here is a scripture for you to print, cut and carry with you and/or post in places where you will see it often. Ground yourself in God’s truths not Satan’s attacks. Encourage your heart and mind every time you are reminded of His great love for YOU!
Here is what God’s Word says about His unfailing, relentless, unending love for you:
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15 NLT)
Translation: Our High Priest Christ has gone before us and suffered all that we will experience in this life. Because He did not sin even when under the strains of suffering, He was the perfect sacrifice to satisfy God’s wrath against sin.
