He sat before me, his small body trembling. He was in the doctor’s office for a flu shot, a small shot in a small arm. He was only 11 years old, but his mother insists each year he come in for a flu shot.
He had waited all through his school day, visualizing his after-school appointment. Now he sat there, in sheer misery, first trembling, then breaking into a sweat. And then his teeth chattered. All he could ask, as tears glistened in his eyes was, “Will it hurt?”
It will hurt for a while
I tried my best to reassure him he’d had similar shots before and, yes, it will sting a little, but it is a small shot, the smallest needle in the office.
All was in vain. It was totally impossible for him to see anything positive in this moment — all was suffering.
He knew his mother was waiting out front and he dare not create any more fuss or refuse the shot. Together we rolled up his sleeve, I wiped the area…and he scarcely felt the sting of the needle. All was over for another year. He wiped his face and vanished into the outer office — probably to reappear next fall when once again we will look at each other and he will ask plaintively, “Will it hurt?”
Our life will bring hurt
And so it is with us. Will it hurt? Definitely! It will hurt because life hurts from the moment of birth until the moment of death. If we ourselves don’t hurt at any given moment, probably someone else does — and possibly they hurt because of us, or for us or with us.
It started with Adam and Eve
Adam was faced with the hurt of a change from his idyllic life:
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you…By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken” (Gen. 3:17-19 NIV).
And what about Eve?
“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children” (v. 16).
Pain from family life
Too soon, Adam and Eve realized the depth of pain and sorrow when two brothers quarreled and only one returned from the field. Later, there was Jacob’s anguished weeping for his favorite son. And David echoed their pain when he cried out for traitorous Absalom: “0 my son Absalom, my son! …would God I had died for you!”
Isaac and Rebekah experienced grief of mind over Esau’s choice of wives and Samson’s parents lamented: “Is there never a woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?”
Suffering was experienced by righteous people
The pain of physical suffering reached a climax when Job sat scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery cursing the day of his birth, “Why didn’t I die in the womb?”
We see Jeremiah and his misery when he was cast into the dungeon of Malchiah, into the mire where he began to sink.
Our family suffers, we suffer
Family-related suffering is seen again with Ezekiel’s loss of his wife. How, we wonder, did he bear the loss of “the desire of your eyes?” yet restrain his mourning at God’s command.
How many times, we also wonder, did Mary ponder in her heart the words of Simeon? “And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” She felt the sword many times once Jesus began his ministry, even to the moment when she stood at the foot of the cross.
Jesus felt the terrible hurt of rejection seeing Judas leave into the dark Jerusalem night on his mission of black betrayal. Later, he saw his other friends fleeing into the shadows of Gethsemane as soldiers led him away. Then he heard Peter’s words of denial.
Hurt from our brethren and our failures
Yes, life has its hurts from birth to death. And many times we, like the little boy in the waiting room, cannot see beyond the harsh comment or unkind slight. Ecclesial life, which at times can be a great blessing, can at other times bring real difficulty as we deal with personalities and problems and when we see the barrenness of our own souls.
“All that the Lord has said we will do” may have seemed like a reasonable vow at baptism. Ten, twenty or thirty years later, however, our perspective may have become jaded and even cynical.
Hard to see the benefit
How much more hurt will come our way? The “needle” poised above the arm looks huge and the prospect of more hurt may seem greater than we can bear.
Sometimes we have to be brought very low before we finally cry out, “Help me, 0 Lord, please help me, heal me and lead me through my tears and pain to your kingdom.”
We have been told:
“Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (II Cor. 4:17).
And: “To him who overcomes I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God…He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death…He will be dressed in white, and I will never blot out his name from the book of life” (Rev. 2:7,11; 3:5).
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:4).
Finally we realize that it is the pain, the tears and the suffering now that give meaning to the joy, peace and glory that are promised.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One