I'm writing for Five Minute Friday, and this week's prompt word is SUFFER.
When parents are super busy, children suffer.
When parents are strained or exhausted, children suffer.
When the marriage is not a safe environment, children suffer.
When parents ask children to perform for love, children suffer.
When parents are hurting from their own internal wounds, children suffer.
When parents abuse the children they're supposed to protect, children suffer.
When parents tear down the walls of their child's identity and worth, the child suffers.
When that child carries those wounds into marriage and parenting, their spouse suffers, their children suffer.
And so it goes on. There is so much suffering in families.
It's not how God meant it to be.
He designed families to be a place where everyone can be safe, nurtured, protected, honoured, and to grow - like plants inside a well-watered garden.
When that garden is damaged, invaded, undermined, untended, everyone suffers.
The pages of the Bible are full of suffering families, from Adam and Eve's family in the very beginning, right through to the families mentioned in the pages of the gospels and beyond.
But God.....................
He sent His Son to touch those who were hurting from years of suffering, sometimes generations of suffering. He forgave, liberated, embraced, validated, healed, empowered.
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. Matt 4:23
He Himself suffered pain, rejection, humiliation, shame, brokenness, fear, and all the awful effects of sin - for us - on the cross.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted............................ Isa 53:4-7
It's ironic that it was in a garden that He fully surrendered to God's plan, for us, so that we don't have to suffer. He started His walk of suffering, the crushing, in that place.
Because He suffered, and conquered all of it, we can apply His victory to each area of our lives where we have suffered, and still suffer.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Rev 21:4
That victory is called grace. The empowering grace to move forward from whatever we are suffering with.
On Sunday, we listened to one of the best explanations of grace I've ever heard. One of our occasional preachers was filling in, and he did an amazing job of explaining what that grace is and how we can and must access it, every.single.day, to move forward from our whatever it is we are suffering with.
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:15,16
We can come and receive that grace. Do we? Will we?
Will we come every time we suffer?
We can.
Do we?
Will we?
“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:5-7
How much will we continue to suffer instead of coming?
He longs for us to come. He longs to heal our hearts and ease our suffering.
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt;
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
“But My people would not heed My voice,
And Israel would have none of Me.
So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart,
To walk in their own counsels.
"Oh, that My people would listen to Me,
That Israel would walk in My ways! Ps 81:10-13
My family was not a place
ReplyDeletewhere anyone would want to be,
but I found a kind of grace,
the kind that worked to set me free,
off and running in the hills,
with fish caught for the cooking,
far from those familial ills,
and no-one would come looking.
Sure, you'd call me scary-wild,
but I never brought no harm,
for I was still at heart a child,
and I had the wit to charm
my way out of most any scrape
and then go running in escape.
Such a comprehensive exploration of the subject. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteYour FMF Neighbour #10
Thanks for sharing the link to the message on grace. Just what I needed to hear tonight.
ReplyDeleteThank you Kath. Someone once said that we are wounded greatly in relationships and it is in relationship that God chooses to heal us.
ReplyDelete