Suffering: “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you”

Four years ago, my husband and I squinted through snow flurries as we wound our way to Denver.

We were driving my 13-year-old to an MRI screening for cancer.

Lymphoma is a primary consideration, the radiologist had said, goading us toward the test that day.

Those of you who’ve followed this site may remember this post, where I attempted to sort through six weeks of horror, where we’d wondered just how withering my son’s future might be.

That day at the children’s hospital, my hands shook on behalf of my son, from his angst over drinking the chalky oral contrast, to the needles he dreaded. In fact, I comprehended far more than he did of what lay at stake.

My husband and I had of course taken off work. For our son to go it alone was never, ever an option.

I recalled Abraham with Isaac as we climbed the stairs to the test together, waiting for the rustling of a ram. And God, I believe, climbed with us.

This begs the question. In ordaining our suffering, could God be ordaining his own?

See, like the rest of humanity from David to Job to Jesus, I tend to experience suffering as forsakenness. Separation. My God, My God…

But is that reality?

I’m exploring this theme in my first article for Fathom magazine, a publication “with an eye for intellect, wonder, and story and a conviction that our beliefs have consequences for ourselves, our communities, and the world.”

Hop over and check it out–and maybe, with me, chew on this new-to-me angle of God’s faithfulness.