At
the nursing home herein Denton that I visit regularly I have several
friends that have no doubt often asked Why?
There is Zelda who in her mid 70's is too young to be confined to a
nursing home the rest of her life, but she has a malady that causes her to
faint and fall, so she can no longer live alone. She has buried two
husbands and has no children. There are thousands like her in nursing
homes across the country, doomed to a loneliness that has no visitors.
Loneliness is a dreadfully bitter experience to bear. But our Lord, who
was tempted in all the ways that we are, bore this trial also. The great
preacher, Horace Bushnell, often preached on "The Loneliness of
Christ." This is the word that often hammers in my mind when I visit
these homes, loneliness. It is a
devastating emotion. That Jesus knows what it is to be lonely can be of
great comfort to these people.
Hopelessness
also pervades nursing homes. Usually patients do not go there until all
hope of a normal life is lost. The poet, Alexander Pope, was speaking as a
secular humanist, when he wrote that lovely line "Hope springs
eternal in the human breast." Lovely but false! There are many of the
world's distressed who no longer have any hope that life will be any
better for them, not in this world at least
Several
in the home have Alzheimer's, which is as dreaded a disease today as
leprosy was in the ancient world. It is shocking to see how quickly this
malady can destroy one who was only recently in the best of health. One
man so afflicted cries out as if he were a wild man, and it is not known
why he does this. I figure it might stem from his frustration of no longer
being able to communicate, a man of whom it is said, "He knew
everybody in Denton." But now he recognizes nobody, maybe not even his
wife. And how exemplary that woman is. She was a school teacher who retired
early in order to care for her husband in the early stages of Alzheimer's.
When she finally had to put him in a nursing facility, she was there
several times a day to comfort him. I sometimes visit with her as she sits
beside the man she has been married to almost a half century. She talks of
their youthful struggles together, their children, their values, and of
her fears and guilt. She admits that she often asks, Why?
Then
there is my young friend Chris, who was left a quadriplegic by an auto
accident that killed both parents. He is a smart 15-year old who has
learned to operate a computer by head movements. I often read to him,
stories about nature and from the Bible. He is always attentive and
appreciative. He can hear but cannot speak. Our visits are always
positive. I talk with him frankly about his condition, that even though he
may never be able to speak or walk or use his arms that he can
nevertheless be productive, and that he must never feel sorry for himself
but meet the world headon. And I assure him that once this life is
courageously and faithfully lived that there will be another world where
all the wrongs of this world are made right.
Once
when I dropped by to see Chris some Pentecostals were there to take him to
a healing service. They received permission from his guardian, an aunt,
who herself has cancer. They were all on a high. Chris was going to church
to be healed. Chris himself was gleeful. Knowing the severity of his
condition (the Scottish Rite hospital for children has performed numerous
operations on him), I felt terribly uneasy as they wheeled him away to be
healed. What would it do to his faith in God that we often talked about?,
I asked myself. I did not of course challenge the well-intentioned
Pentecostals, and I never questioned Chris about it afterward.
I
keep on telling him not to ask Why? but
to deal with the When. There is
no point in asking the old question over and over again, Why
did this happen to me?, for it is a question that has no answer. One
could just as well ask, Why should this not have happened to me if it ever
happens to anybody? Forget the why, for it only gets in the way. Deal with
the when: when these things happen
to me, what am I to do?
Chris
has a good mind and good eyesight. Instead of playing the "poor
me" game he is playing on a computer, one designed especially for
him. Down the road he might be another scientist out on the frontiers of
the cosmos like Stephen Hawking. God may sometimes show His glory through
healing, but He also does wondrous deeds through those that are
handicapped. It was this great truth that the Lord impressed upon Paul:
"My strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9).
While
I realize it is harder done than said, our aim should be to be content
with whatever circumstance befalls us, especially in those instances where
we have no control over what happens to us. But we can with God's help
control our attitude toward what happens. This great passage offers
encouragement: Be content with such things as you have (Heb. 13:5). It is not an
easy thing to say to a quadriplegic or to a woman whose husband is wasting
away before her eyes, but the same verse assures us of a promise that
gives us the power to do the impossible: "For He Himself has said, 'I
will never leave you or forsake you."'
That
Scripture goes on to give the believer's cry of victory: "So we may
boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to
me?"' It could just as well read, "What can circumstances
do to me? I will not fear! Why? We have the one assurance that
matters, the Lord is with us and he will never forsake us, no matter what.
And if He is with us He will work for good in all the things that happen
to us. It may well be that having Alzheimer's or being a quadriplegic are
among the worse things that can happen to us in this world. There is no
way of seeing them as God's will for any of us. But they happen in God's
world, and they happen to the best of us as well as to the worst of us.
There
is nothing to be gained in asking why when such evils befall us, but there
is much to be gained when we keep on believing that God is with us and
that we need not fear. We can even believe that while God did not bring
the evil upon us, He will work in and through it for our ultimate good.
Such is the promise in Rom. 8:28, and note how the New
English Version puts it: "In everything, as we know, God
cooperates for good with those who love God." What a blessed promise!
In everything that happens God is there with us (He never leaves us or
forsakes us!) working with us for our good.
Working
with us! Cooperating with us! That shows that we have a response to make.
We must yield to His will, which may be resignation and contentment to
what cannot be helped. And to forget all the whys. We must show the
courage that accepts those things in life that cannot be changed.
Contentment!
And
to believe that in the end, in God's tomorrow, which is all that really matters anyway, God will work it all for good. If some tragic circumstance
in this life is used of God to make me a more beautiful soul both in this
world and in the world to come, then I will in the end praise God for the
tragedy. And when we really believe that He is with us and that He will do
as He has promised, then we can praise Him even now for all that happens
to us. "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thess. 5:18).
If we will but believe, we can say as did one great saint who learned to live with God in this world the hard way (and is there really any other way?): It was good for me that I was afflicted (Ps. 119:71). —the Editor