I’ve been home for over a week. Home, of course, means that I go to work and then come home immediately without a six-hour pitstop at the NICU. In many ways, life is good.

I have not been able to go to church events for quite a while, and I miss folks a lot. I really do. It’s strange to think that folks haven’t seen me for two weeks and then I show up as a substitute teacher on Sunday covering Hebrews 7. Still, the outline isn’t mine and I hope it generates a lot of discussion. I’ve always tried to be more of a facilitator, anyway. Things I feel like I need to say, I say here. Class is an organic experience of people to me, not a captive audience.

I digress.

Folks have sent me lots of wonderful gifts, emails, prayers, money, clothes for Dancing Bear, and more. One couple got us a double stroller. That allowed me to get a really good rocker glider for my wife. We are very blessed with good friends.

I feel better, in part, because of a more ‘normal’ life. I’ve been able to talk to the minister and to friends and family. Sharing the experience helps to deal with the myriad things I feel about it. I know that people are there when circumstances send me off to the Ozone. (O God, where are you? O God why did this happen? O God when will it end? O God how is this your will.)

A friend sent me a book by Stormie Omartian. I had never heard of her before I read this book. I had to skip to the chapter that interested me first before reading it through. I struggled through the theology to arrive at what I knew to be true, but didn’t want to admit.

You don’t get to find out why.

Two passages address the why in some way.

John 9:2-4 deals with a common presumption. A blind man came to Jesus and his disciples. The disciples ask, “Who sinned?” It’s easy to say that the circumstances a person is in is due to their own sin or error. However, he was born blind for God’s purposes alone. Jesus made it clear that sin did not do this to the man. God allowed it/ordained it for this moment in time that His own purposes.

Yes, I still struggle with this passage because the man was blind for years. I thought about the things he missed, the 20 years of the community assuming that there was some great sin in the family, the 20 years of mistreatment. Ugh. Why would this be allowed/ordained?

Yet, it’s important to remember that the man was not incomplete because of his blindness. I have to remember this with both our children. Our son has a hearing loss, but he a whole person with diminished hearing, not a person missing 10% of himself. He is not damaged or incomplete in any way. He doesn’t need to be fixed as he is not broken. He loves to entertain, he would crawl out in the middle of the NICU and get the nurses to laugh. He will laugh at you until you laugh back. Actually, he chuckles at you. This chuckle is his own trait, it doesn’t come from either one of us.

It’s true that cutting-edge technology will probably arrive here in a year or so that will implant his hearing aid and give his close to 100% hearing. But better hearing will not make him a better person or more complete.

Sometimes we think that we have to be spiritually perfect to be useful to God. We see ourselves as incomplete, at least I know that I do. If I could overcome this struggle, if I could quit eating emotionally, if I could go to seminary school, if I had more money, if I had more patience, if I had the gift of discernment, etc. etc. Before the Holy Spirit, we were not whole, we were separated from our creator. With the Holy Spirit, however, we are whole. The gifts and talents we have do not make us whole. Our battle against sin is not what makes us whole. Our struggles do not make us whole – with the Holy Spirit, we are already complete. We have everything we need to admonish, encourage, instruct, and love one another. This is not because of some great gift outside the great gift of the Holy Spirit. Paul asked why he had a persistent problem, a thorn in his flesh. God answered him saying, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Paul had everything he needed already, even though Paul thought that he was somehow hampered in his effectiveness for God.

The other passage is from Hebrews 12:5-6. The Lord afflicts those whom he loves. The text literally says that he trains (as in discipline) his children and he scourges them. mas-tig-o’-o means only one thing, to flog. Many take it figuratively and translate it to mean ‘chastise’ or even ‘corrects’ as it says in the Message Bible. I disagree. In this specific case, affliction is a mark of love. There are many that serve God and lead lives of affliction. I think of the late John Paul II and all that he did while literally crippled. I think of the apostle Paul and his beatings, emotionally and physically. I think of Jesus himself who spent periods of time homeless and moving around. Betrayed in the end by a selfish friend, and abandoned by all but the women.

Jesus’ affliction serve to heal us, but also to demonstrate his ability to be the perfect High Priest. He learned obedience in his suffering (Heb 5:8). He not only relates to what we feel, but he goes through it with us. God the Father allows/ordains the events of life, God the Holy Spirit comforts and empowers us in our troubles, God the Son walks with us as we go along. Sometimes I forget the roles of each person of the Trinity and blanket it all on God the Father. I forget the distinct and separate person of Jesus that sacrificed everything, travels with me, and speaks to the Father on my behalf through his perfect blood.

I still struggle with what all of this means. Affliction = Love is an equation I feel like I escaped from when I left the ICoC. (We Oppress you and control you because we love. Please don’t be angry at us because we love.) Sometimes, I feel like Christianity is akin to the drug dealer’s “The first one is free” tactic. (Forgiveness, Grace, Eternal Life were all given freely at the cross, but now that you are hooked on God and dependent on Him, everything else is going to cost you.) Praying this whole time has felt very strange and disconnected. (Well God, since you have already ordained/allowed everything since the creation of the world, I guess I’m just saying this for my own mental health.)

Yet, there is something that will not let me give up entirely, though I’ve said it dozens of times recently. I’m not like John Paul, or Paul, or Jesus because of what has happened. I just hope to be more like them as I deal with it. I want to be able to say and mean, “The Lord Gives and the Lord Takes away, Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”