A.W. Tozer wrote “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”
When I heard that I thought, that’s not right. God would not hurt us. Intentionally, he would not cause us any pain. He loves us too much. I just can’t fathom God doing that. But this morning I was outside on my deck watching the sun come up through the trees. I thought “God is truly with me right now at this very moment”. I had to sit down and watch. I was running late getting ready for work but I had to sit down and look at the glory of God all around me and then that quote came into my head. And I realized that God would hurt us. He does hurt us. Let me rephrase that, he allows us to be hurt. I still don’t think that he would intentionally hurt us.
But you know, sometimes those that love us the most hurt us the most. I mean, growing up, I used to get whipped. I can remember being scared to death of my mother’s hairbrush, or the flyswatter. I swear Mom only had a flyswatter so she could smack our tiny rear ends. And if we disobeyed we got a smack. If we disobeyed too much then we got the wrath of Daddy’s belt. I remember when I was about 8 or 9 and I was going to get a whipping. I was waiting for my daddy to come home. Mom promised it, “just wait until your Dad comes home”. I knew I was in for it. I don’t remember what I did. But I do remember Daddy asking me if I wanted a whipping. I had been whipped with the belt before. I knew I didn’t want a whipping. But I wouldn’t back down. Daddy pulled at his belt to release it from the loop. He said “one”. I didn’t budge. He said “two” as he went to undo the buckle. Still no budge from me. He said “three” as grabbed the buckle to pull the belt out of his pants. I said “no, Daddy, okay, I promise I won’t ever do it again”. And I never had a run-in with Daddy’s belt again. I still got smacked with the fly swatter from time to time but Mom never had to tell me to wait until Daddy got home again. And those people loved me. They loved me more than anybody else in the world. But if I was going to do bad, they were going to turn me good in any way that they could.
Maybe God works like that.
But, what if you haven’t disobeyed. What if life just smacks you around? What if things in life have hurt you so much that you don’t know if you can get back up? What if God has hurt you deeply?
I remember a time that life beat me up. Bad. Real bad. My mother had died. I was lost. I told a counselor at the time that it felt like my heart had died too. How could I live without her? Not very well, as it turned out. My marriage was in a bad place. I had started my own business and that was rolling downhill so fast I didn’t even have time to get out of its way. I had a young son. I was so miserably unhappy I would have done anything to feel joy again. Anything. I came to the conclusion that I needed to have another baby. I knew that my parents felt joy through their children, through their family. I needed to have another child because I knew that child could make me happy. That was a lot of pressure to put on a pregnancy and a baby. But I was so lost I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Soon after I gave birth the bottom fell out. My marriage was over. My business was gone. My ultimate support system was gone. I could not function. I couldn’t quit crying. I don’t know how but I got professional help. And I was hospitalized. They told me that I had “postpartum depression”. I told them I had depression, it might be postpartum but it was pre-partum too. I thought I was so funny. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad.
They put me on all kinds of drugs and fed me chocolate cake. Things were looking up. I began to interact with some of the people who were there with me. I still feel bad that they had to move my roommate because I cried nonstop for about 3 days and nights. Even with drugs. I had been there for about a week when they took us to art therapy. Let me tell you about art therapy. It’s like art class when you were in grade school. There were all kinds of supplies and you could color or draw or anything. I am not an artist. I did enjoy coloring and being creative. But then they made you start thinking. This therapist had us draw a picture of the most painful thing we ever endured. I drew a picture of the cemetery. That was still so painful to me, two years after my mother had died. I was very proud of my drawing. I even drew a little stick figure of me standing over Mom & Dad’s grave crying. But then that therapist did something that has impacted my life ever since. She told us to turn our drawings over and list the good that has come out of that pain. WAS SHE KIDDING ME???? I immediately started wailing, to myself. How could she say that. There was nothing good that could ever come out of that pain. I was frozen in my seat. But then I wasn’t. I got up and left the group and went to my room and wailed out loud. A while later the therapist came into my room and wanted to know why I left her session. I told her in no uncertain terms that there was nothing good that came out of my mother dying and never would be.
But good did come out of my mother dying. I moved on. I became my own person. I moved to western Kentucky and married a wonderful man and raised two more children. By the grace of God, I am where I am today. I would not have ever considered leaving my mother. If given the opportunity I would not have moved over 200 miles away, ever. It was only because my mother was not there any longer that I was able to make that leap. And it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. My life is not perfect now but I am happy and have joy in my life. Of course, I used to have discussions with God about all the pain I went through. I used to tell Him that I have had my share of bad things happening. I used to tell Him that He would never take anyone from me that I loved so much again, until I’m really old. I used to tell Him that I knew He thought I could handle it, but I didn’t think that I could. And I used to tell my children that they had to take care of themselves because if anything ever happened to them they’d have to bury me right alongside them. And I thought that was true.
Recently life happened again. My son and his wife were expecting a daughter in November. They went for their routine appointment and during the ultrasound realized that the baby’s heart had stopped. My son called me, rather matter of fact, and told me. I knew that he was being strong but I could tell that he was in so much pain. I made plans to be with them when the baby was delivered because I knew that they would need an awful lot of support. Then I got the word that my daughter-in-law was also in danger. The condition that had killed my granddaughter could kill her mother. So I got in the car and got to them as fast as I could. When I was able to see that they were being taken care of I let them sleep. The next morning my granddaughter was born. And even though there was so much support for my son’s family I knew that everyone who was there was in pain.
I know that my granddaughter, and my mother and father are in a much better place. I also know that this is what we are all working towards, getting into heaven. I know that. I am not sad for them. I am sad for myself and my child and his family. And I pray that this is the greatest pain that they ever have to endure. One day I hope that they see some good that has come out of this pain. And I pray that God’s blessings for them will be great. No, I know that God’s blessings for them will be great.