Tough Stuff

Life is tough. My mother in law recently made a comment about Heather and my first 3 years of marriage that I think is very true. She said that we’ve had a hard first 3 years of marriage. 

She was referring to the medical difficulties. Our actual marriage is sweet. I love living in union with my wife. I love the oneness of body, soul and spirit. Truly, we grow together with our emotions and minds intertwining. The mystery is great, how I’m becoming more like my wife in the way that she thinks and feels. Likewise, she has become much more like me in mind and emotions too. 

But medically, we’ve had problems. From day one of marriage I almost had a panic attack which only grew to a hospital visit during our honeymoon. That might have been prophetic to what would come ahead of us. 

Our roles switched as I recovered from my undercurrent stress and regained my footing in life but my wife developed wacky symptoms through 2 pregnancies that were tougher than nails. She gave birth to more than 2 sons during these short 3 years of marriage. As Heather conceived our second son Micah, she suddenly gave birth to her hidden disease of limes disease. 

It has been one thing after another that Heather has endured. At this point, she seriously has pain pulsing from every corner of her body from top to bottom and east to west, from the inside out and from crevice to chest. 

How much is enough!? How much can she take? How much pain can a human body endure? 

I don’t know and yet I do know. 

What I do know is that Jesus Christ suffered the most excruciating asphyxiating crucifying pain that a human can face and the Bible tells us — God’s Word assures us– that we too can expect some of His suffering. 

We are. 

Whether it be through persecution of people or persecution of body, we will all undergo pain. Right now I suffer the pain of watching my wife go through this pain. Nobody will ever feel exactly what we feel, I’ve realized, except Christ. 

Not only has He experienced our pain, but He is experiencing our pain as He lives inside of us through His Spirit. 

I must say though, that both Heather and I don’t feel like our 3 years of marriage have been as bad as they could be described if you just look at our medical records. Sure, it seems like we’ve gone through the ringer, but it’s really getting tossed around in the washer. God is cleaning us up and when He open up the door, He will bring us out of this violent and spinning washing machine in life and bring us into His awesome Home. And we will be cleaner than when He first gently tossed us into His machine. 

Yes, we are being “washed” in our union together as Ephesians 5:26-27 describes the purpose of the marriage union as “that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy without blemish.” 

This is God’s grand design in marriage and as a mirror of His purpose for His Church bride too. 

God is sanctifying us through pain. He has tossed us into His sanctifying “washing machine,” and boy do we get our body’s knocked around in the process. But there is a purpose! God is washing us with His Word as we cling to Him, the “His” of “Word.” 

God will present us in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that we might become more holy and without blemish. 

So not only do we feel like we are in God’s washing machine but we are feeling the intense heat of the steam that comes from the ironing board as God irons all of the wrinkles out of us. 

It’s a funny paradox to actually think about: as Heather and I grow older together, the stress of life will age us and wrinkles will show the proof. But as we age with wrinkles and the stresses that form them, that same stress that forms physical wrinkles God uses to iron out our spiritual wrinkles. As we grow less defined in life, God makes us grow more defined in Spirit. As our body wastes away as 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “our inner self is being renewed day by day.” 

Because of these true realities that pertain to us as Christians, in an odd and miraculous way, Heather and I feel strong. We feel hopeful. We are still filled with joy, but it is hard. 

I would add, thank God that it is only hard at times. As Ecclesiastes 3 says so well, “there is a season and time for everything under the sun.” 

That means that there are excruciating seasons that are very much harder than hard to endure, but then God enters us into a season of rest and refreshment. He enters us into a rejuvenating season in order to save energy for the impending winter (which is really long in the Adirondacks)! 

As time makes everything feel, sometimes these seasons feel long even though they are short or they feel short even though they are long. This too is God’s gift to us in the midst of seasons with trials and pains or seasons of joys and rejoicing. 

As Ecclesiastes 3:15 continues to say, “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.”

In other words, time looks very differently from God’s perspective than ours. God’s perspective over the sun is different than ours under the sun. 

Often, I find confidence and encouragement and strength from looking above the sun when my seasons below the sun are excruciating, hard and long! 

I must look to the timelessness of God that lives over the sun!

Hence, the saying comes to pass, “for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look NOT to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 

So look above the sun where the eternal lives, not below the sun where time drags on like a slug and other times races like a cheetah. 

I’ve found that as I focus on God’s perspective through pain, it helps. Not only that, but as I look to God’s perspective on pain and suffering, He saves. He does more than help. He saves because God’s perspective on pain is out of this world higher than my own because He knows what it is like to lose His eternal Son Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ knows what it is like to be God and yet human and experience the compounded pain of the whole world, not only physically but spiritually too. 

And He knows what it’s like to conquer that pain, which saves us. 

And so we look up to our God instead of down on our circumstances. And He saves!