Pain and Suffering

Have you ever had surgery or had a bad accident that required some type of therapy to get back on your feet? Last week my dad had his hip replaced. He had the surgery on Tuesday and went home Friday.  He is struggling with his recovery. He is 71 and his body is not able to bounce back like a young persons, nor is his body wanting to cooperate with the therapy. His leg is swollen and stiff and he cannot seem to get comfortable.

As I talked to him he said that if he knew the process would have been this painful and this difficult he would have never gone through with it. I think the most difficult part is the physical therapy. He was wheeled into a room where a therapist lifted, bent and twisted his leg. The pain was/is excruciating, he said it seems as though the therapist is trying to kill him! The therapist, on the other hand, knows the pain is temporary, he knows the suffering will end and he knows the end results will be much better. I feel sure that in six or eight weeks my dad will be back on the golf course playing the game he loves with little or no discomfort!

As I sat listening to him tell me this the other day a couple of verses came to mind about suffering and perseverance:

I Peter 1: 3-9 - 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

II Corinthians 1: 8-10 - 8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,

I think our human nature wants to avoid pain and discomfort. I do not think any of us look forward to an opportunity to suffer. Many times in the midst of suffering we lose focus on the end result, we cannot seem to take our eyes off of our "bad" situation and look beyond it. God (our great physician and therapist) knows what is best for us. He knows what will make us into the person he wants us to become.  Just like my dad has to learn to trust that the physical therapist knows what he is doing and that it is his best interest to cause some pain and discomfort. We too have to learn to trust God knowing that if we are struggling or suffering it is not without benefit, the end result will make us stronger. Are you ready for your therapy session?