Breaking through the pain of suffering

And of course, in Jesus Christ, with whom I am privileged to have a relationship, I have the perfect counsellor for dealing with hardship; for He is the living God who became a man and died for us on the cross so that He too could experience what we experience on earth, and most importantly, so that He could take on the sins of the world and pay our astronomical debt – a debt that we could not pay ourselves. Little did I know at the time (last year) but my understanding of suffering and the positives that can transpire because of God’s guiding hand were about to be imparted to me. Jesus was about to bless me by introducing me to someone very special – Maria Landon, the best-selling author of Daddy’s Little Earner - a lady who, as the title of the book suggests, had endured the most horrendous sufferings imaginable at the hands of her own father, who was sexually abusing her by the age of nine and selling her on the streets by the time she was fourteen, and whose adult life, up until the past few months, has been a tragic story of abuse, violence and depression. 

 

Yet as well as relating her horrific experiences, Maria’s two books show a lady of real courage and tenacity – a lady who refused to be beaten by the evils of the world, and who went on to be a mother to two wonderful sons, and later inspired other women of similar backgrounds by producing her own material as a personal development teacher. In her own words:

 

 

Meeting Maria last year and getting to know her better in the early part of this year has been a real privilege – particularly as I had the great pleasure of seeing her give her life to Jesus and have that happy ending that for so long seemed so unlikely. In her own way, Maria’s story reminds me a little of Esther’s in the Bible - a Jewish girl who against all expectations became queen of Persia and rescued her people. Not only is Maria passionate about working for Jesus in rescuing those who have been scarred and damaged by their past, but reading Maria’s story, the similarities to Esther are striking inasmuch as, retrospectively, one can look back on her journey and see God working behind the scenes, even when it hardly seemed that He was there. Faithfulness has significant blessings, as God continues to rescue those who have faith in Him, even in those times when we fall away or make bad choices. Maria’s story shows that the cross of Christ knows no limits – His grace extends further than our very deepest faults. 

 

If Maria’s story is analogous to Esther’s in the sense of God working behind the scenes to fulfil His purpose, then the other Biblical analogue that comes to my mind when I think of her extraordinary strengths is that of Samson’s Riddle, told after he had killed a lion with his bear hands (Judges 14:12-20). 

 

 

Lions do not, of course, yield meat for man, yet food came from the devourer; out of the carcass came honey, and out of bitter came the sweetness. This riddle shows Divine providence and grace. God will bring good things out of the very worst of mankind – even enemies are made serviceable, and what should be God’s wrath is used to engender God's praise – it is then that we find meat out of the eater and sweetness out of the strong.

 

Many who have felt the deepest regret for their past and have faced the toughest situations so often possess the greatest joy at being saved. Those that have seen trouble and despair have so often ‘loved much, because they knew that much was forgiven’ (Luke 7:47). But it is through Christ that we have access to the very best coping mechanism of suffering, because He too suffered at the cruel hands of wicked men. Yet the bitterness of His suffering, as it seemed to the disciples; would produce the most significant sweetness of all – salvation for us. It is because of His death and resurrection that the earthly beasts of torment we face are, in fact, carcasses filled with Divine honey.

 

The richest blessing of having Maria in my life is something that no theology book or philosophy book or science book can provide; for in her I see a true hero, one whose very presence shatters all those facile illusions (to those who need them shattered) that you will not often find real heroes in Hollywood mansions or singing on stage in large arenas – real heroes are, for me, those who emerge from backgrounds like Maria’s, with very little cynicism and bitterness and have the strength and tenacity to make something of themselves and, equally admirable, encourage and help others to do the same.

 

And that is perhaps the most significant driving force behind my wanting to write an article about someone as opposed to my usual something(s). As a Christian apologist I had noticed for many years that the subject of suffering was always used in defence of a non-theistic position or as justification for atheism. Yet I have also noticed for a long time now that it is mostly those who have had no real hardships that have the biggest quarrels and indignation over suffering. Those who have suffered most - those who really could feel justified in asking ‘Where in Heaven’s name was God when all the bad things were happening to me?’ – are so often the ones who demonstrate real courage and dignity as they frame suffering in its wider (and proper) context, and look through it as they stand firm with Christ, just as He stood firm with all of mankind in mind through His own earthly sufferings. 

 

Please do not misunderstand me, as great as Maria’s story is, I should not wish to trivialise earthly suffering by trying to provide a explanatory catch-all - ‘These aren’t really very big issues when you have God on your side” - because there are, without a doubt, some horrible evils and atrocities, and disgusting acts of moral turpitude in the world that we should rightly hate (Romans 12:9). And no one is suggesting (at least I am not suggesting) that being a Christian provides an all-encompassing panacea for dealing with atrocities and acts of suffering – for they still anger us and disgust us as much as they do non-believers.

 

If there is still an extant difficulty in reconciling the co-existence of an Omnipotent and Supremely Benevolent God with simultaneous, contemporaneous and (seemingly) concomitant acts of wickedness, it is, in my view, people like Maria through whom God has much to say. After all, if Maria, who has suffered more than most will ever suffer, can recognise victory over Satan and see the love and grace of Christ through the hazy clouds of injustice, then how much of a roadblock is suffering really when one can see the bigger picture? It ought to be said that Africa has the most rapidly proliferating Christian growth of anywhere, despite being a continent with more suffering and poverty than anywhere else in the world. Where there is poverty God will bring spiritual enrichment; where there is injustice God will bring justice; where there is pain God will bring comfort; and most of all, where there is suffering and hardship God will give us the best thing of all – Himself. 

 

Even as I zoom in on some of the worst things imaginable I can sense that Divine Omnipotence pouring out His love and grace on the world is bound to consist of things, even horrible things, that only resonate with us at the most base and wicked levels – after all, God is love, and He will use every situation to pour out His love on as many people as possible.

 

Perhaps the most significant thing we can distil from Maria’s story is that with suffering there is always a bigger picture, and that it is in this bigger picture that we are likely to find God’s grace working, more so than in the smaller details of the acts themselves. One thing I know for sure is that I, as a limited human, can only sample the smallest tip of the creational iceberg; that is, I can never have all the clues about what is going on ‘behind the scenes’ in the mind of God. I believe that He has a plan for each and every one of us, and I believe that His love and grace far supersedes anything imaginable to us humans. 

 

It is in the worst acts of evil and suffering that we are called to be stronger in our faith; for often all we can do is trust that in spite of all the terrible things we are seeing, God is using each situation to make something better for someone. What we have to remember is that God can see not just everything that is going on in the present, but every event connected to it and every event that preceded it - all are interrelated in one seamless whole. I’m reminded of the horrendous case of poor baby P and the wickedness that surrounded his short life. Yet whenever I question why God allowed him to suffer into death so young, I can find no better answer than Jesus Christ who suffered more than any other yet still prayed for forgiveness for those who were against Him. 

 

Perhaps God had planned all along to pour out His love on baby P by giving him eternity in Heaven without him having to live through earthly torments; perhaps God knows something about what he would have grown up to be (his earthly future) that we don’t; perhaps he is one of little ones that would be blessed in eternal happiness straight away; perhaps God’s love and grace saved the little one from much more pain and suffering; perhaps he saw an inner peace for him that we cannot. Even further, perhaps God will use this situation to pour out more of His grace, maybe even to those who committed those horrible crimes and the surrounding people affected by this tragedy. Perhaps God will use the situation to extend His grace further than you or I could. Perhaps God will bring the surrounding families together in a way that you or I cannot imagine. Perhaps they too will feel the Lord’s presence in a way that they wouldn’t have otherwise felt. Perhaps if I’d been around at the time of Maria’s most intense suffering I would have made the same enquires about God’s supposed absence. Yet as I have been fortunate enough to know her in adulthood I can now see how God has blessed her abundantly, and how His grace was operating in areas scarcely knowable at the time. I can know this only because I know God and I know that His grace is everywhere - in the dark and iniquitous places. Where He is needed most that is when His presence, and His grace, will be greater than we can imagine; as St Paul says, ‘Where sin increases, grace is increased all the more’ (Romans 5:20).

 

As Christians we are called to take up our crosses and follow Christ, and in doing so we will at times face situations out of which we wonder why God does this or allows that. Even, on the oddest of occasions, when our emotional accretions have been grazed by some hardship or devastation we find ourselves wondering if He’s up there at all, and how He could have ignored our prayer and remained absent in our need – after all, in my experiences, doubt is the fluid that love bleeds when our emotional accretions have been grazed. But it is through such pain that faith increases even more. This is probably the ‘honest doubt’ in which Tennyson said there lives more faith than even amongst the creeds. And all who have experienced the above can tell you that as soon as faith increases, so too does Christ’s grace; for as soon as He seems most absent He will show Himself, through some answered prayer that we know is Him, or He’ll produce a miracle; He’ll change someone’s life, He’ll baffle some doctors with a miraculous healing, or He’ll provide a vision of something specific that is going to happen. And when it does happen we wonder why we had any doubt at all.

 

I remember the profoundly moving blessing that God gave me when He brought into my company a Christian gentleman from Somalia – his name was Mumbak, and I had a chance for a one to one with him. I was overwhelmingly moved by Mumbak; a man whose family had suffered torture and death under a brutal regime, standing there passionately declaring Jesus as Lord, telling me that the churches over in his country are packed with people that have seen miracles - that even throughout the occupation of a brutal militia the Risen Christ is present, using every situation to pour out His love and grace. ‘Amen’, I said, as I put my hand on his shoulder. In comparison my sufferings have been negligible, yet I can stand proud next to good people such as Maria and Mumbak and declare a victory over the Bad One; decreeing that throughout the mix of pain and joy, I find Christ, Lord of my life - Risen so that one day He will wipe away every tear. Through it all He keeps reaffirming Himself - He IS the truth.

 

I have always prayed that everyone whose heart is weakened by suffering and scarred by pain will find some answers from the One who is able to provide those answers far better than I am able to. Yet meeting Maria and sharing her story has strengthened my own spiritual mettle, for I have seen that as well as the theoretics there is also a real possibility that we can all share in each other’s experiences and allow them to profoundly impact our own hearts and minds. I find other people’s strength and bravery and courage and persistence can be used positively to sharpen my own - and that, I think, is a good template for us all. If it can sharpen us it can sharpen others too. Meeting somebody who has achieved what Maria has achieved is an ideal springboard of encouragement for all of us to go out and help others do the same. Not one of God’s creatures should be subjected to the horrors that Maria was subjected to; she has raised awareness in her books – but her journey, since becoming a Christian a few months ago, really starts here. Her fortitude is, both for her and for us, simply a marker from which Christians must go on and complete the journey – there is always a world full of things to accomplish. 

 

And of course, the glory when it becomes ours will really be Christ’s; it will be ours because it is His – for we have a God that understands pain and suffering at every level. Whatever any of us has been through, the Risen Christ has been through too. He has lost someone He loved, He has been beaten, He has felt physical and mental torture, He has been ridiculed, He has felt alone, He has been betrayed, rejected, and nailed to a cross and left to die. But the Risen Christ defeated suffering, pain, tears, humiliation, betrayal and death itself - He rose again fully prepared to introduce a new kind of love and grace into the world - love and grace from the Divine - a love that says “I understand, for I too have been through the worst that the world can imagine, and there will come a time when I will wipe every tear away”.

 

For me, a lady like Maria answers more questions about human suffering than a dozen essays can ever hope to answer. Why? Because she has come through her own personal hell to find a bit of Heaven on earth; she has come into a relationship with the Risen Christ, the one who suffered most, because of us. If Maria can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ after so many years of pain, then so can anyone. Such courage and such faith may not make the daily atrocities we see on the news and read about in the papers any better, in fact, in most cases, it won’t. But the wisdom one finds in saying ‘Jesus is Lord’, and through realising that He has already provided an answer to all the difficult questions of suffering, is the same wisdom that provides insight into the practical truth that can help us – our God onto whom we can lift both our troubles and those of others.

 

Of course, all this talk might sound easy in principle, but less so in practice. How on earth do we lift our troubles onto God, particularly in those moments when the world seems horrible, unjust and depressing? This is where we must pray for strength and for the help of the Holy Spirit. It is not our suffering we must focus on, but His; for when we focus on His suffering it is then that we shall see the burden of our own suffering removed, to be replaced with an inner-peace. If we can, even for a split second, feel, or make some attempt to feel, God’s thoughts and feelings as He divested Himself of all His glory on the cross; if we can truly share (however ephemerally) the suffering and agonies, it is then that we shall experience God most fully in our lives. Our Christian faith is most real to us when we have, in some way, faced the horror of the cross, and appreciated that it is our God who was nailed there, for then we can say with incredulous but genuine wonder “He died for me”.

 

It was D.H Lawrence who once suggested that man is very different at dawn from what he is at sunset, and that the changing harmony and incongruity of their variation make the secret sounds of life. Perhaps it is less the sufferings of life that impede our growth, more so the subtle differences and earthly distractions that cloud our judgements about the simplicities of suffering and to whom we ought to turn for help and guidance. Christianity, as Maria has discovered, is a journey; an interplay of balance, harmony and then (much later) completion. All these things that distract us, both in Christian living and in secular living, I suppose we could see them as epidemics - ideas and products and behaviours and messages spread like viruses. If evil and suffering are contaminations, it is in Christ and Christ alone that we find purification. In all my life, even through the deepest philosophical explorations, I have never found a better answer to suffering than that.

 

For those who wish to share in Maria’s journey, or help others to do so, her new book ‘Escaping Daddy’ is currently available in all good book stores. You can visit her website by clicking on the link here.

 

It is through Christ that Maria has found her happy ending - but with lots of awareness still to be raised, much to accomplish and many people to inspire, Maria’s happy ending is not really an ending at all – it is only the beginning of an exciting journey of ‘impacting her world’ with Jesus. Too many people are still being physically and sexually abused, too many people are still suffering, and too many young people are feeling unloved and uncared for in the world. As Christians we can do much to offer practical help to a world badly in need of help, and at the same time we can increase our own understanding of why there is suffering in the world and what God has done about it through His Son Jesus Christ.