Perspective of Pain

Have you read The Hiding Place?

I know that many people say "every this type of person should do this" about many things, but I do believe that this is a book that every Christian should read. In fact, if the story of Corrie ten Boom and her family does not come readily and quickly to mind, you should read it again. If you're too lazy (and don't quickly say you're too busy-I bet you could spare at least ten minutes each day and finish it in a week or two), at least watch the movie.

My sister was listening to the Family Radio Theater production of it, and I started thinking. Honestly, I felt like crying as I pondered perspective.

Perspective. The word comes from Latin, literally meaning to see through.

Perspective is something that Betsy had.

Betsy, for those of you who had to put The Hiding Place next on your reading list, is Corrie's sister who was with her in the concentration camp. As I considered Corrie's anger and how Betsy corrected her sister, the weight of the difference between their lives and ours pressed deeply on me.

Are you struggling to forgive someone who has wronged you? Perhaps a sibling is mean to you intentionally. Perhaps someone you thought was your friend lied to you. Maybe it was even something as terrible as your parents divorcing.

Imagine someone betraying you, for money, causing your family to be torn apart, your innocent, beloved father and sister to die, and you to lose your family, your friends, and your freedom.

Then, imagine forgiving him. Praying that the Lord will bless him and his family. Having sympathy for his pain.

Makes you feel pretty selfish for remembering when that kid was mean to you at youth group years ago, doesn't it?

Are you struggling with loneliness? Perhaps you lost someone you loved. Perhaps you look with longing at your friends who are married. Perhaps you haven't been able to spend time with people as much as you wish. Perhaps no one understands what you're going through.

Imagine leaving your home--not for a new one, but for a concentration camp, leaving behind everyone you care for, many of whom are in serious danger, knowing that some of them have died, that many you will never see again--and all of this in the discomfort of a barren place.

Imagine your pain made harder by knowing your husband is enduring the same thing on the other side of the fence, while you are unable to comfort or even be with him, and that each time you see him, it is likely that it may be the last time.

Imagine hearing shots nearby, not knowing if it is someone you love that was killed.

Makes you appreciate your comfort more, doesn't it?

Are you struggling with physical pain? Are you tired? Is your work hard?

Imagine being weak with lack of food, beaten, with no physical comforts, medicine, or doctors--and yet getting no sympathy, but being continually forced to more difficult manual labor than you have probably ever experienced?

Make your weariness easier to bear?

I could go on. My point in this is not at all to diminish what you are enduring. Who knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man? God remembers that we are but dust. A bruised reed He will not break. "No one knows the trouble I've seen," is true, aside from God. One thing that I think our culture, perhaps, gets wrong is thinking that because x goes to a greater degree than y, y doesn't have any significance. Just because someone does something better or endures more than you doesn't invalidate your experience. But that is a topic for another post.

What is my point, then? Maybe it's for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed.

Then again, maybe I am diminishing what you're enduring.

"Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace."

That's perspective.

It's amazing how Christianity makes everything matter-and nothing. Nothing earthly. And yet, suddenly everything does matter. Are the barracks full of fleas? That doesn't matter. And yet, they matter immensely--for how we respond to them has eternal, profound significance.

And that was why I felt like crying myself as I heard Corrie weep as she prayed for the man who by our perspective destroyed her family and begged God to forgive her for harboring bitterness against him. Because my perspective, our perspective, is so much shallower than that.

Betsy showed Corrie that if she loved God, not only did she have to accept her father's death, but being betrayed--and having fleas. Things difficult and enormous, and things relatively small and just annoying. She saw through the appearances of this physical world to what truly mattered behind it.

O what joy we would have if we could have this heavenly perspective continually in our lives!