Is Suffering Bad?

Helen Grace Lescheid

As a parent, I grieve when I see my grown children suffer. I feel they are too fragile to endure it. I want to protect them. I issue many warnings (though they usually fall on deaf ears). When I see my children in trouble, I jump in to bail them out.

At times I wonder: Am I interfering with what God wants to do in my children's lives? Am I robbing them of experiencing God's power firsthand?

Spring temperatures in British Columbia's Fraser Valley, where I live, can be very temperamental. Late in February last year, the warmth of the sun had tricked daffodils into forming swollen buds ready to burst into bloom. Then, icy March winds raked across our garden. My daffodils lay like stiff pencils, frozen on the hard ground. Ruined beyond repair, I thought.

I snapped off a few flowers and carried them inside the house. How pathetic they looked, more ready for the trash can than the table. Dejectedly, I plopped them into a vase filled with warm water and placed them on the kitchen table.

The next morning, a golden surprise awaited me. My "wasted" flowers had become a bouquet of beautiful daffodils. As I studied each delcate bloom, I couldn't find a single blemish--not even a hint of yesterday's adversity.

You must understand. I'm very fond of flowers, and I nurture them like children. Now I praised God for the overcoming power He had planted within a fragile daffodil.

"If that is how God equips flowers, which are here today and gone tomorrow, how much more will He equip my children for life's adversities?" I mused.

Indeed, Paul writes of this overcoming power in human beings, whom he likens to fragile clay pots: "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed" (II Corinthians 4:7-9).

Yes, my children will get their share of suffering. I cannot prevent that. But when I see them slain by life's adversities, I can offer a warm place to them. I can nurture them with the warm water of my prayers. Who knows what golden virtue God is developing in them?

Helen Grace Lescheid is a member of South Abbotsford MB Church in Abbotsford, B.C.

Return to the M.B.Herald Vol. 36, No. 13 Home Page