the uses of suffering

We had two dear little girls live with us for half the year. Their Mom is in prison; their dad is in and out of correctional facilities. We would pray for their parents every night, and we would also pray for my brother, Uncle P, who is incarcerated. It made their own heartache a little more bearable, a little less unmentionable to know that I had a loved one in prison, too.

I saw the girls this weekend. They are living with a lovely foster family who hope to give them a permanent home. My other brother happened to be visiting for the weekend, and came along with me to visit with the girls. After they both leapt in my arms and whispered a few secrets in my ear they wanted to know "who that guy is." I told them he was my brother, Uncle D. J was puzzled, "How did he get here?' she asked. I said he drove to my house for the weekend. Then she challenged me, "How did he get out of jail?" I realized her mistake, told her this was my other brother, and we laughed together about her mistake.

And then I had a curiously warm feeling that took me a moment to decipher. I was happy to share that misfortune with these little ones. Was I glad, I asked myself, that my brother was in prison? Of course not. But I was very glad I could understand some of their own sadness because I had the same grief. And that felt like a small revelation. The phrase from Hebrews 4 immediately came to mind in the King James Version I grew up with and love so well:
For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. I realized I was touched with the feeling of their infirmities, and it was a sweet fellowship.

I found myself pondering what other infirmities I have been touched with that have become a bridge between me and another hurting soul, and I thought of a young woman I know who has a painful relationship with her mother through no fault of her own. The mother has some hard issues of her own which this particular daughter brings to mind. My own mother's issues are completely different, but she has rejected me because of demons that plagued her before I ever existed. I just became the lightning rod that attracted their fury. So, I can sympathize with my young friend, and understand the particular hurt and frustration she feels. I am one who can be touched with the feeling of her infirmities. And that is good.

I remember distinctly the first time I felt I understood the passage in I Corinthians 1 which reminds us that it is "the God of all comfort Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." It gave me a ray of hope in a hard, painful place to realize that NOW I could comfort someone else hurting as badly as I was.

I have never, however, understood the clause in verse 6, "but if we are afflicted it is for your comfort." In what strange (or even sick) way could one person's affliction be the comfort of another? But today I marveled at the wisdom of God who works all things together, and was amazed to think that in the midst of hurts I suffered 30 or 40 years ago, God had my young friend in mind; He knew our paths would cross and she would need the comfort I could give her. How inscrutable are God's ways; how infinite his wisdom. How skillful and deft his weaving.

We all know the platitude, "Misery loves company," but I don't think that really applies to what the little girls and I share. I think Paul's phrase, "the fellowship of . . . sufferings" is far more lovely and apt. It describes the heart-bond that grows from a shared experience, and points us to the sweetness that can be gleaned even from heartache. It reminds us that nearly all experience can be redeemed in one way or another, and that there is indeed comfort in knowing we are not alone. Someone else has been touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and that makes all the difference.