Recently in an interview recording I was asked to share about a time God answered my prayer. Immediately what came to mind is the church building our congregation has moved in to. It’s something my husband and I (and our church members) have long prayed for, but quite honestly grown hopeless over it ever happening.
But God provided and we now have a building! The building itself, it’s location, the funding raised in a short period of time – it’s more than we could have imagined – at just the right time. I’m not sure how much longer we could have gone on the way we have been. Not “we” as in the church, but we as in my husband, and therefore our family.
After sharing this huge answered prayer, the interviewer asked me to share something more personal. I came up with something, but felt misunderstood.
For the pastor and his family, the church cannot be separated from us. Everything about it is personal. It is more than a building, or a job. It is a life calling. Whatever is happening in, around, and through the church and its people affect us deeply.
Being bothered by this felt similar to another recent experience. I learned back in June that I had not been accepted into a particular graduate program. I was disappointed, but based off my interview not too surprised.
I had been asked about my upbringing and any past trials. I did not have any dysfunctional stories or hardships to share. But as a parent and a pastor’s wife I have walked alongside many in deep darkness. I sensed though that because these trials weren’t mine per se, she did not give credence to me knowing anything about pain or suffering.
In one sense she is absolutely right. I have not been Job, nor do I pretend to identify fully with someone who has been a victim. My suffering has come from secondary experience. However, the emotional toll on my husband and I from bearing others burdens throughout our years of ministry, including some tough issues in parenting is not nothing.
I am different today because of these things and it is because of these things I am pursuing a masters in counseling. This is why reading the following words from my friend Cameron Cole in his new book, Therefore, I Have Hope, felt so validating to the pain I do know.
“I heard it with disbelief… when my mom said that a parent feels their child’s pain twice as much as the child. Then I became a father and found it to be true. A mother aches more deeply over her son being bullied than the boy does. A dad seethes and laments over his daughter’s broken heart more than she does.”
Yes!
But what he goes on to say is really where the comfort comes.
“God experiences and endures every ounce of suffering that his children undergo in their lives… God understands our challenges as human beings in a fallen world…because God in the person of Jesus Christ is a member of the general fraternity of human suffering.”
As I wrote myself in Face Time, Jesus knows what it is like to be misunderstood, persecuted, mocked, rejected, gossiped and lied about, criticized, ignored, excluded, sad, alone and hurt by those he loves. He knows what its like to be under stress and pressure, and to be afraid, upset and angry. He felt every emotion we do, but without sin. Because he experienced all that we do, he understands us completely.
God gets us!
Others may misunderstand me, but God gets me. I may not be able to identify fully with others pain and suffering but God does. And ultimately He is my resource, and the resource I want to offer others.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16
In our daily struggles and the life altering events may we feel the presence of the God all All Comfort, who got in the boat with us and said, “Me too.”
