WHAT’S YOUR ULTIMATE HOPE?
Mike Cunningham
July 27, 2014

In his most recent post on my blog, my friend Ed McGrath asked: “Why does God allow so much pain and suffering?”

Ed served our country faithfully and is a combat veteran of the U. S. Army during the Vietnam War. He served in Nam for a year as a machine gunner with an infantry unit that was part of a special-forces unit. Among his many awards, Sargent McGrath received the very high honor “Soldier’s Medal” for heroism.

Ed still serves our country. He was elected Commander of the American Legion where he lives. One of his duties is attending funerals. He told me that “what makes them so sad is we are loosing our true hero’s, the people who served in World War 2 and there are very few of these brave souls left.”

Ed McGrath

I don’t have an answer to Ed’s question about why God allows so much pain and suffering. Nobody does! However, It’s been my prayer filled hope that today’s sermon will help make “some” sense out of it.I’ll start by sharing the account of an event that took place on:

“Saturday, May 26, 1973. It was one of those sweltering late spring days when the sun rules in a cloudless sky; it was just right for a wedding. As the two hundred friends arrived at the parish church the bridegroom was already in his place, smartly dressed in a new blue suit and his shoes brilliantly reflecting the brightness of the day. In traditional but subdued conversation the congregation discussed and guessed at the bride’s outfit. When she arrived she wore an attractive lilac dress made of crimplene with long sleeves and a short skirt; her hair was decorated with flowers. The young bridesmaids completed the scene in their neat blue dresses with floral yokes. The day and setting were perfect and everyone was excited and happy. It would have been like any other wedding, except for the fact that the bride and the bridegroom were confined to wheelchairs.

Between them Graham and Tessa had spent a total of sixty years either in hospital or residential care. These two wartime babies suffered from an infantile paralysis that left them with little or no muscular use of their legs and with Tessa’s speech so seriously affected that it took her many years to learn to articulate normal sounds. Life, for both of them, had been a long and constant struggle. They fought against loneliness, the indifference of society (“At one time mother could have buried me in the garden”, says Tessa, “and no one would have known”), the frustration of the disabled and then the over-protectiveness of well-intentioned institution’s that could not imagine the possibility of Graham and Tessa living normal lives.

Graham courted Tessa on the promenade at Westcliffe when he maneuvered his chair close to hers. To hold hands meant instant mobility for both of them! They were engaged for ten years, more out of wishful optimism than practical hope. It was impossible for them to live a normal married life and Tessa would never manage to run a home; besides no one built married quarters for wheelchairs. “People just don’t realize that we’ve got feelings just as much as anyone else,” Tessa reflected, and I really wanted a home of my own. I wanted to be doing something. I didn’t want to be a cabbage.”

Today when I visit the home of Graham and Tessa they answer the door first by an intercom and then by an automatic latch-opener. Beyond that, the home is like any other. The doors are a little wider than normal and a few items and workbenches are set at a low level. But Tessa is mistress of her own home and Graham is responsible for setting up the Teasmade for the morning ‘cuppa’! Washing, cooking, and most of the housework, are shared by Graham and Tessa, and every Tuesday morning they wheel off to the local supermarket to buy the weekly groceries.

Tapestry and rug-making occupy Graham, and knitting and dressmaking keep Tessa’s free time well filled. Each week horse-riding and swimming complete a busy programme; holidays abroad are all part of their art of living. Do they ever get annoyed or frustrated? “Yes often”, admits Graham, “especially when I’m trying to put my shoes on and tie them. Sometimes I get fed up and just leave them undone!”
And Tessa? “Yes, when people let me down, fail to turn up and disarrange my day.” Graham and Tessa are always ready to laugh and share their enjoyment of life, and they really miss their place in church on Sunday.

They have known doubt. Shortly after their marriage circumstances were very hard and for the first time Tessa questioned, “If there’s a God, why has He done all this to us?”Graham had no answer. They battled through the dark days of doubt and came into the light of seeing a wise purpose behind even their disability. I asked Graham why God should let them be handicapped.(They claim that they don’t ‘suffer’ and will not let me use that word!) There was a pause while he slowly eased himself upright into his chair: “We’ve been put here as an example, he responded, a little short of breath, “to show what can be achieved through four wheels instead of two legs. God could have healed us; but He didn’t want to, because He wanted to show people what could be done from a wheelchair, and that one could cope.”

If Graham and Tessa have proved anything, it is that life is bigger that physical health.I know you don’t have to be a Christian to learn this, but in their case it is a firm belief in a God that has given them a sense of purpose and fulfillment in life. When Graham tells you that his purpose in life is “living and working to the glory of God” it is no empty cliché; he has learned it in the school of frustrating disablement. Graham and Tess believe that it is people who are without God who are really handicapped; they readily admit that if you took God out of their life the world would contract so much that they would have nothing left. (A)

I believe that the following devotional will help you folks to better understand God, and the problem of pain and suffering. It starts by mentioning the fact that,

“In 1818, little 9-year-old Louis was sitting in his father’s workshop outside of Paris, France. His dad was a harness maker, and Louis loved watching his father work. He even aspired to one day be a harness maker just like his father.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” ISAIAH 55:9

So his dad began teaching him the skill of cutting the pieces and punching the holes in the leather. But once when Louis hit the hole-puncher, it flew out of his hand and pierced his eye, leaving him fully blind. This led to an infection that spread to his other eye and eventually cost him his eyesight in that one as well.

Years later, Louis was sitting in the garden when someone handed him a pine cone. As he ran his fingers over the ridges, an idea came to mind: What if the blind could learn to read with their hands?! So Louis Braille created an entire alphabet with raised dots, enabling millions of blind men and women to read to this very day.

Louis Braille’s tragic loss of eyesight had a purpose. But it took years of living with his blindness before he began to realize the reason for his pain. Just like him, our pain has a purpose as well. Though we may not see it, God is at work in our suffering. Trust Him to reveal the purpose of your pain in His perfect timing. (B)

I’m sure that many of you folks are aware of the fact that,

“For every person who triumphs over disease and pain and deformity, there are many who become bitter and hard and who withdraw into a cocoon of fear or misery.” (C)

“If this world of disobedience to God was free from all disease and pain, nothing would make men take life seriously. Pain makes men think. In the New Testament Paul wrote of a time when he experienced such severe suffering in his life that he felt it was “the sentence of death;” but he knew there was a purpose behind it: “This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.” (2 Corinthians 1:9). Later on, he explained that the purpose of a particular “thorn in the flesh” was “to keep me from becoming conceited.” (12:7). (D)

“The existence of disease and deformity is therefore partly intended as a constant reminder of the fact that man is not the master of his own faith. The disablement of Graham and Tessa has made them more sensitive to others and more appreciative of life. It has made them both think. Somerset Maugham was not wholly correct; suffering can and does “ennoble the character.” It may tragically be true that for many “one cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun,” but the sun is still there. Helen Keller lost both sight and hearing as an infant of nineteen-months and was consequently dumb. She learned to read and lip-feel, and graduated with honors from Radcliff college, Boston. When she wrote in 1903, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it” Helen Keller was her own evidence of the truth of this.”

“If suffering and disease are an argument against God, what do lives like those of Graham and Tessa and Helen prove? “Even pain”, wrote Amy Lowell in Sword blades and Poppy Seeds (1914),“pricks to livelier living.” It is no criticism of God if many people allow suffering to “shatter and ruin” them instead of ennobling them. Given that man is sinful, he is better off for the existence of disease and pain. At least they act as some kind of check to his wild career and make him think. Remember F. B. Meyer’s perceptive comment that “Physical suffering is a smaller calamity that moral delinquency.” And C. S. Lewis’s that pain is a “roadblock on the way to Hell.” (E)

The following is another devotional that I selected to use in today’s sermon. God blessed me through it and I hope that He will bless each of you folks as well. It starts by telling us that,

“The Boston Globe newspaper carries a daily column dedicated to answering questions from its readers. Some years ago, the paper listed the top ten unanswerable questions it had received. Among them was one from a 9-year-old boy, who wrote,

“I have a cat that eats regularly and needs to go on a diet. He also eats mice when he is out. How many calories are there in a mouse?”

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:28)

There are some questions to which we simply don’t know the answer. This is most definitely true when asking questions about God, who is so immense and powerful that man, could never dream or fully understanding Him.

We see examples of this all around us today. When parents take a child to the doctor to be vaccinated, the child doesn’t understand what’s going on. All he understands is that he’s being stuck with a needle and it hurts. But the parents know more…and they let the child experience a bit of pain today because, in the grand scheme of things, it’s better for him!

There will come a day when we’ll be able to ask any questions we want. But until that day, we may not get answers to the “whys” of the Christian life. So we wait…and we trust God to work everything out for our good!” (F)

“When you ask, “Why doesn’t God do something to restrain the evil and suffering in today’s world,” I am obliged to reply, “He does; He restrains the vast majority of evil that would otherwise be there. I can’t show you where He has done this, because if it was there to show you then it would be obvious that He hasn’t restrained it!”

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18

God allows enough suffering to remind man of his foolishness in abandoning his Creator, but not too much to cause the world to sink beneath its own weight of evil. (G)

“God is active in His world. He is doing something all the time, and without restraining power the world would be far worse than it is. How many
“near misses” are really the intervention of God? If He lets everyone share in His obvious kindness, like the sun and the rain, then He doubtless lets everyone benefit from His unseen footprints also. God always has a purpose for everything, or else He ceases to be God. What then is the purpose of His unseen hand restraining the suffering of the world? Is it not to make the world a little better than it would be if left wholly to man, and to give men time to think, and reason to be grateful? “Do not show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you towards repentance.”(Romans 2:4) (H)

I’m hoping that the following will shed additional light on Ed’s question about the reason that God allows so much pain and suffering. It’s about a remarkable Christian woman named Lillie.

“Lillie had spent her life looking after aging parents. A virtual prisoner in their home, she quietly and lovingly tended to their needs as the years of opportunity slipped away. She never married and had lived what most would consider a dull and colorless life. Eventually she was left alone and almost at once a severe stroke took away her own health. When I met her she was bedridden, speechless and in frequent severe pain. But of all the people I have known, there are few who could teach me so much, so simply. Lilly died some years ago, but whenever I think of her I have a mental picture of a frail wisp of an old lady propped up against her pillows, and with a wrinkled face wreathed in a smile and her left hand clasped over a painful chest, she is slowly lifting up her right hand and pointing with a finger towards Heaven. For Lillie with little enough to encourage her in this life, her confidence lay in the certainty of Heaven. That was her ultimate hope.”

What’s Your Ultimate Hope? Please let me know if today’s sermon has enabled you folks to make sense out of “some” of the pain and suffering in this sin drenched world. There is still a lot more to think about and consider concerning this issue.

Lord willing, next week….

(A) Not By Chance, Making Sense Out of Suffering, by Brian H. Edwards, © 1982 by Evangelical Press, Pages 62-64.
(B) Senior Living Ministries website.
(C) Not By Chance, page 70.
(D) Ibid. Pages 70-71.
(E) Ibid. Pages 71-72.
(F) Senior Living Ministries website.
(G) Not By Chance, Page 115.
(H) Ibid. Page 117.
(I) Ibid, Pages 117-118.