The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it. – Simone Weil

Ever since I saw her long go on a morning TV show, Joni Eareckson Tada has been one of my heroes. Recently, I read her book, A Place of Healing – Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain and God’s Sovereignty. One chapter took my breath away: Thank You, God, For This Wheelchair. Joni shares story after story of how God has used her diving accident and disability to advance His Kingdom and touch so many lives.   

She writes: My friends, this is one of a million reasons why I am grateful God didn’t heal me of my paralysis. What if I had been healed…back in the early 1970s? What if God has answered my prayers as a seventeen-year-old, released me from my paralysis, and returned me to a normal life of a woman on her feet? It might’ve been well for me, but what about others?

She shares that there would have been no Joni book to give to others who are disabled, even in the slums of the world. No Joni and Friends or Wheels for the World to do wheelchair distribution for impoverished people. Then she asks, “Would some of the disabled have come to Jesus anyway? Would God have gained glory, and would the name of Jesus have been held high even in slums through the bright, joyful testimony of disabled Christians? It’s a mystery of God’s Providence…”

She goes on to share “because I wasn’t healed, because God had plans for my life they’re wider and higher and deeper and more profound than I could’ve ever imagined. Other disabled people in faraway reaches of the world have come to Christ and will be with me in heaven. In glorious new bodies that will never tire and never fade, we’ll explore the high mountains of that place, and the wide, green meadows, and we will laugh out loud for the joy of the goodness and grace of our heavenly Father.” Wow! 

During my life I’ve suffered very little. I can’t begin to wrap my brain around the suffering of someone like Joni. One thing I’ve learned as God has walked me through the valley is to seek to do what Joni does: Praise God for the suffering! I ask Him to use it for His glory even when I don’t understand and to help me grow spiritually and better minister to others. 

A Christ-followers attitude and approach to suffering should be different from someone who doesn’t know Jesus. Essentially, there are three approaches to human suffering: escape, tolerate, and redeem. 

Escapists reject suffering. They don’t deny that pain exists; they discount it as something for a person of faith. The argument goes like this: “Christ healed the diseased in His day and does it in ours. God’s will for us is pain-free living. If we’re stuck in some kind of agony, something is broken on our end, not God’s. Increased faith and an upward tick in moral performance insures a pain-free existence.” If you’ve been in church circles long enough, you’ve heard some version of this myth.

The second approach are adherents who view themselves as realists. They hold that since the Fall introduced brokenness to our world; we’re living with the fallout. Death, tragedy, disease are consequences of humanity’s sin and rejection of God’s will. They believe Christians will eventually move beyond this, either at death or Christ’s return. Nobody’s excited about the reality of suffering. It’s just something we’re stuck with in our current day.

God’s Word offers a third and better way. The writer of Hebrews contends For the joy set before Him, He endured the Cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (12:2). That’s a position on suffering rarely modeled in our pain-avoidant society. Maybe it’s because we don’t have a solid grasp of what the joy set before us is.  As Christ-followers, as we see suffering believers like Joni (and those in our church family), we must champion the value of redemptive suffering at three levels: societal, congregational, and personal. 

We must acknowledge societal suffering.

Globalization changed the way people see the world. A generation ago, traditional print and broadcast news limited what messages we received about what was happening in the world. Today, with a 24-hour news cycle and social media, we can hear bad news from any corner of the world in an instant. For example, the recent devastation from Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica was heartbreaking. 

Our challenge as Christians is how to acknowledge the current events people are struggling to process without just regurgitating tragedies and getting stuck in suffering. We can’t deny suffering that results from tragedies, disease or violence. We must acknowledge pain. Yet, we must still declare God’s power, love and sovereignty in a broken world. We don’t always have answers but must acknowledge the prevalence of pain in our world or we’ll become tone deaf to those paying attention to suffering.

We must love and show compassion to church family, or congregational suffering.

There are many in our own church who are suffering and in a fallen world, it won’t end until we’re Home. Weep with those who weep is a phrase from Romans 12:15, encouraging empathy and compassion towards those suffering. It emphasizes the importance of sharing in the grief of others as a way to support, encourage and comfort them. As a spiritual family, we have both the responsibility and privilege of walking with others through some of their darkest moments – the death of a loved one, disease, marital breakdown, unresolved family conflicts. We must share love and hope in a way that’s caring and sensitive to their pain.

We must share our own personal suffering.

Here’s where it becomes difficult. Unless EMTs have been called or we have a diagnosis of a terminal disease, we rarely share with others. While we may not share with the whole church family, we all need those we do share with. 

Self-revelation is hard. While I don’t believe we need to share every setback or heartache from our personal lives but if our tragedy is public, the best approach may be for ourselves, our families, and our church family to let church leaders share our difficult news while we take time to process it. Yet, there are other moments where those in our church family won’t know of particular struggles unless we choose to share with them. It’s important to share our grief with the loss of a loved one with our church family. Public heartbreaks like a divorce or an adult child arrested are other times that we need to share. We need their love and support!

To share our hurts, when appropriate, allows those who love us to be Jesus to us and minister to us. It highlights that we’re seeking to faithfully follow the Savior even in our pain. While some things are so tender that perhaps an unspoken prayer request is appropriate, but it should be rare. We need those in our close circle in our church family to know about our struggles so they can love, support and pray with us and for us. Self-protection is rooted in fear. Redemptive suffering is anchored in faith. We must not live in the denial of brokenness. Even in terrible pain, we can be a beacon pointing to Jesus as we navigate dark valleys together.

Thankful for my wheelchair