Archive for the ‘trials’ Tag
Comfort and the Brown Tooth
Filed under: By Nan Kuhlman, Christian Living, Relationships, Trinity | Tags: brown tooth, comfort, grieving, Hope, Suffering, trials
Comments (4) 
When she was about three years old, our daughter Chloe took a spill in a Pizza Hut parking lot and ended up hitting her mouth, specifically one front tooth. As a result, the baby tooth turned an unpleasing shade of brown. While most of the time she was not self-conscious about it, there was one time that I found her on her bed, crying. “Josh (a friend of her older brothers) called me Brown Tooth,” she sobbed.
I held her, gave her tissues, and said I would talk to Josh about his comment. Before I left, I reminded her that her brown tooth was a baby tooth, and that anytime it could fall out and be replaced by a new, white, permanent tooth. Despite the hurt, there was hope.
You see, when I was three years old, I also injured one of my front teeth. I had endured the “why is your tooth brown” questions, and I had been called “Brown Tooth.” So when I reminded Chloe that the brown tooth’s time in her mouth was limited, I knew what I was talking about.
In the same way, Christ comforts us and gives us hope when we are going through difficult times. When he took on our humanity, he also took on our pain, both great and small. Hebrews 2:14,18 says:
“Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death…That’s why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins, he would have already experienced it all himself–all the pain, all the testing–and would be able to help where help was needed” (The Message).
When we are suffering, whether it’s a life-threatening disease, the loss of a loved one, or hurt feelings over a nasty comment, Jesus Christ suffers with us. After all, “We live and move in him, can’t get away from him” (Acts 17:28, The Message). He understands our every emotion. When we grieve, he grieves. But there is a difference.
When we grieve, we cannot see how we will ever be able to get past this situation. When Jesus grieves with us, he grieves with hope, because he knows that his Father’s will is to make sure “that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good” (Romans 8:28, The Message). He feels our pain, just like I felt Chloe’s pain about being called “Brown Tooth,” but he grieves knowing that everything will work out. Sometimes he even sends someone to comfort us, someone who has been in a similar situation and made it through, like I did for Chloe. Sometimes he just gives us peace in the midst of not knowing how this situation will be resolved.
I’m hoping that the clumsiness and the resulting Brown Tooth isn’t a family tradition, passed on forever to future generations. But I’m sure that if Chloe ever has a daughter who falls, injures her tooth, and then suffers the embarrassment of a brown tooth, she will know what to say to comfort and encourage her. Our Elder Brother Jesus Christ will provide the comfort and the hope through her.
~by Nan Kuhlman
photo courtesy of http://www.moranandbrooks.com
Carrying Another’s Burden
Filed under: By Nan Kuhlman, Christian Living, Love, Relationships, Trinity | Tags: carrying other's burdens, compassion, love and other drugs, Parkinson's disease, sickness, trials
Comments (7) I was working with one of my Basic Composition students whom I’ll call Tom. The rest of the class had left, and we were plugging through how to organize an expository essay when he began to elaborate on his health issues.
I listened as he told me about the progressive brain disease where his brain is continuing to shrink, and his life expectancy is dwindling to maybe 15 more years. Tom is 34.
When faced with the suffering or problems of others, our first instinct is to fix them. While it might be motivated by compassion, our unwillingness to watch others suffer might also be linked to our own unwillingness to suffer with them. It is hard for us to love someone who is hurting (physically or emotionally) because that puts us in pain, too. So we work like crazy to make them better.
Our “help” can take the form of nagging (my personal specialty) or unwanted or unasked for advice (another talent of mine). We are unable to rest with the hurting person and just listen, providing the comfort of presence that reminds them that they’re not alone.
In the movie “Love and Other Drugs,” the character Jamie (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is a pharmaceutical rep who inadvertently falls in love with an artist named Maggie (Anne Hathaway) who has early onset Parkinson’s disease. Once he realizes the implications of this disease for their relationship, he is desperate to find a cure. He flies Maggie to see a number of specialists, and in one part of the story where they have flown in to see a specialist only to find out their appointment was rescheduled, he loses it with the receptionist and creates a scene.
You see, Jamie could only love Maggie if there was hope for a cure, at least at this point in the movie. It hurt too much to endure her pain with her.
In Galatians 6:2, we’re told to “Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law” (The Message). We’re not told to fix them or change them, but to share in their heartache and their misfortunes. Sooner or later, we will need someone to share our problems, too.
The good news in this bleak picture is twofold. First, it’s not up to us to fix everyone’s problems or illnesses. It is helpful to realize that we are limited, that God is not limited, and that He’s keeping an eye on everything so there’s no need to worry. Next, we have a Triune God who loves us in the midst of our mess and our brokenness and who isn’t afraid to sit with us in it. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not put off by our problems. If anything, they are willing to sit with us because they know it will all turn out OK. They have chosen to make it that way.
So as I listened to my student Tom tell me his questions of “why me?” and his concerns for the future, I managed to keep quiet. I laid my well-intentioned advice to the side, and I sat with him while he bore his health burden. I’d like to think my attention, my reflective listening (I did my best), and my presence offered comfort and reassurance. I’d like to think that Jesus was sitting with us, in the midst of Tom’s mess, reminding us both that we’re never forsaken, never left alone.
~Nan Kuhlman