Carried Along

We do this every year, my colleagues and I. We support our current graduating class in the same arena where many of us walked across the stage. Same place, same weekend, same everything.  The truth, though? It’s been one of those years. While life is always unpredictable, this year’s trials seem especially senseless, especially for those I work with.  What began with a senseless attack on one of our colleagues was followed by two botched surgeries in the families of two of my colleagues. In the blink of an eye, a simple C-section and gallbladder removal turned life-threatening.  So along with missing a colleague whose life was upended indefinitely, these two families were dealing with lengthy hospital stays, financial setbacks, and cancelled plans.  We were all still reeling. It just didn’t seem fair.  I know, I know that life isn’t fair, ever, but some years feel more unsettling than others. And this year is one of them. 

I am always amazed at how short-sighted I am. I can read the verses over and over about the brevity and unpredictability of our lives.  I even quote verses like, “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty if like the flower of the field” and “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:6-8), but when it comes right down to it, I naively mourn every time flesh fails, mine or someone else’s. I expect everything to go as planned. I get excited when someone lowers my taxes and cringe when gas prices go up. Simply put, I live by sight and not by faith most of the time.  I don’t want to, but I do.  I spend so much time looking at the present and hoping in or mourning temporary victories and failures that I lose sight of eternity.  

Years ago, I spent several years working at a treatment center for troubled teens.  On one particularly trying day requiring one behavioral intervention after another, I briefly ducked into our school psychologists office.  Dr. House was a rare breed, one who had devoted his life to the psychiatric care of the most troubled children.  I don’t remember the exact words, but I said something to the effect of “Have you seen what is going on out there?  It is out of control”. His response stopped me in my tracks: “That’s why it says, ‘I will lift up mine eyes to the hills’ (Psalm 121:1). We are not supposed to look around, we are supposed to look up.”  

Even in years that seem mostly smooth sailing, someone somewhere is enduring a setback or flat-out suffering, many of them at no fault of their own. Deep down, I still want a life free of health issues, cruelty, financial setbacks, and any other difficulty.  The truth is, that will not be the case this side of heaven. Before his death, Jesus told his disciples, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Now, just like the Jews of his time, I would really like this “overcoming” to be a reduction in all pain and suffering right now.  But that isn’t the way it works. It requires what revelation calls “patient endurance”, the “patient endurance” to trust that an “eternal weight of glory” is waiting for us “as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18). 

So, as I attended graduation this year, the sentiment was different.  A few important people were missing: some because of choices they or someone else made, and some because of pain and suffering caused by nothing more than life in an imperfect world. But as I watched my beloved students walk across that stage after a trying year, one boy I just met this year held a banner that said, “Faith Over Fear”. As cliche as that saying has become, the fact that this student who has endured more setbacks than I ever will can choose to “look up” in faith means that I can too. 

After all, despite how rotten some of these setbacks are, they are truly just “light and momentary affliction(s)” as Paul calls it, that are “preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Thanks be to God.