To Suffer

Suffer. How do we learn to accept and embrace suffering? I am not sure that I know.

Bear, Suffer, Endure, Abide, Tolerate, Stand. All mean to put up with something trying or painful.

I don’t remember where I’ve heard it. It may even be something I personally have made up in my many little word plays. “Embrace the Suck”.

That doesn’t really help.

Thanks to the incredibly difficult lives and hard work those who have come before me have lived for generations back, I live a very comfortable life.

I am not rich. I am far from rich. I doubt I will ever have “rich” kind of money. I may, but I doubt it.

But…were I to look at what others endure, bear or suffer through, well, I have it made.

Where I train and work out, there are a number of folks with physical handicaps as members. I watch them quite frequently with incredible admiration. Just getting on the treadmill is a huge undertaking. Getting on there to walk painfully slow exhausts me as I watch them trying to do so.

But they do it.

There’s a wonderfully sweet older gentlemen named Leroy we have all come to love dearly.

He’s in pain all the time with issues in his legs and feet. Yet, he’s there, every day, showing up on his gas powered scooter to get his daily workout in.

I talk to him every day. I make it a point to.

I’ll often ask him why he does it. “If I don’t it’s so much worse”.

That’s enduring.

I stand in awe of these people. Most of whom are in pain but they come, gladly. They do so knowing that this pain they are in while there is nothing compared to the pain they will face if they do not stay active.

Leroys wife is the latter. She doesn’t do anything to stay physically active. She’s in considerably worse shape than Leroy physically. And while he has great sadness in his heart for her struggle and pain, he regularly talks about how he can’t do it for her. As hard as it is for him to see her suffer, there’s only so much he can do to help her. The rest, she must do…and…she chooses not to.

Where are you at today?

Better question might be, where am I at today?

I admit that I hate the idea, still, as I have written about over and over, of suffering and loss.

I embrace the joy and comfort life brings and I selfishly want it to stay calm and smooth all the time.

I kinda feel about it like I remember feeling about the smooth glass water in the lake when I was a water skier.

We always searched for the place in the lake where it would be smooth glass. (Pay attention kids, I think there’s a new dad metaphor brewing here).

There was such pleasure and joy skiing through the smooth glass part of the lake. You could hear the ski whistle as it cut through the water. Nothing quite like it.

It was like skiing on a hot knife through butter.

Skiing in the chop or the rough water made life so much harder.

Jagged skiing is how I would phrase it.

You would do your level best to ski it, cut back and forth through the boat wake in it, but it was pretty miserable. It would really wear you out.

Your body taking a beating as if you were driving down a washboard dirt road for miles and miles at high rates of speed.

Just exhausted when done.

This, to me, is like my life.

I get up around 5am every day. I do so that I might spend a little time reading my bible, a devotional or two and write. I have transitioned my writing from my hand written journals to this website space for now. Same idea though. All whilst I enjoy a few cups of coffee.

Pre Sunrise at Avalanche Lake, Glacier National Park

This time in the morning reminds me of the skiing on calm water. It’s peaceful, it’s quiet, and at times, I think I can hear God whistling to me. It’s a joyful time to experience.

Then, the day starts and the rough water will often show itself.

That’s what it was like when skiing.

The best time to get that extremely calm water that would be so smooth it’d act like a mirror reflecting back the images above would be just before and immediately after sun up.

The same concept holds true in my hiking. Whenever I want to photograph a sunrise over a mountain lake, it’s going to have to happen shortly before or just after sun up.

This is the calmest part of the day.

As soon as the day gets going, the lake will get rough.

I think that this reminds me of life.

Before Sunrise, Bowman Lake, Glacier National Park

This is why I love the very early morning hours around here. No one is up. It’s very quiet. I can hear the Holy Spirit more clearly if he has a message for me.

Once the day gets going, the enduring part, the suffering part, the skiing through the chop part begins and doesn’t let up till evening most generally.

As I consider all of this, I think I might feel a bit better.

It seems this concept spans across everything I do every day.

Perhaps the key is to learn to embrace it and do my best to tolerate it. To stand firm through it.

These thoughts have come to me today after reading 1 Peter 5:6-9

“So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.”

Every day, for the rest of the time earth exists, it would appear this is how it will be.

There will be beautiful calm and there will be choppy waters. They will co-exist until the time that Jesus returns and all that we see is brought under it’s rightful submission to the God of the Universe. It will be only then that the calm waters of peace we all hope to enjoy every day will come to stay.

Until then, we are told to endure, tolerate, stand, and….suffer.

We have a guarantee, however, those us us who are in fellowship with God through our faith in Jesus Christ. At the right time….

At the right time. What time? That time. And for those of us who are control freaks, we must fully understand and embrace the fact that we will not know that time.

Instead we must simply accept that phrase. It will be the right time.

The right time according to who?

To Him. To the God who created me and has a plan for me. That right time.

There’s both peace AND subtle anxiety in doing so. But it must be endured.

This is where the Psalms are incredibly beneficial for me.

Here are a few underlined verses from Psalm 37. Being underlined demonstrates they have helped me greatly and are important to me.

Commit everything you do to the Lord.
    Trust him, and he will help you. -vs 5

Be still in the presence of the Lord,
    and wait patiently for him to act.
Don’t worry about evil people who prosper
    or fret about their wicked schemes. -vs 7

Day by day the Lord takes care of the innocent,
    and they will receive an inheritance that lasts forever.
 They will not be disgraced in hard times;
    even in famine they will have more than enough. -vs 18 & 19

The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
    He delights in every detail of their lives.
 Though they stumble, they will never fall,
    for the Lord holds them by the hand. -vs 23 & 24

In life, I must every day, remind myself to trust the process. Trust the Lord and trust the timing.

Trust the timing.

Trust the timing.

Trust the timing.

Hear that Rob? Trust the timing.

rob out

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