First off, let me tell you a short disclaimer to what I'm about to write. I greatly respect all of the international athletes that are going to participate in this summer's Olympics. I respect their hard work and determination to enter into the world's greatest international athletic competition and their desire to represent their countries.
However, I am still not going to watch the Olympics. I do not know what the IOC (International Olympic Committee) was thinking when they decided on Beijing, but I do know why many people have a problem with it.
1) China is one of the world's worst violators of human rights. Not only is China known for persecuting Christians and persons of religious beliefs, but it is also supporting other governments that possess equally reprehensible human rights records. For example, China is the primary customer of Sudanese oil. In fact, Khartoum, Sudan's infamous capital that was once the home of Osama bin Laden and Carlos the Jackal, has been experiencing economic growth thanks to China's purchasing of Sudanese oil1. Because of these purchases, China is supporting the same government that has equipped the janjaweed to massacre Christians and others in what has become known as the Darfur Genocide. Near the beginning of the conflict, the Sudanese government appeared to be the major source for the janjaweed's firepower. However, because the Sudanese have supplied China with oil, the Chinese have in return supplied the Sudanese government with arms (if you thought Russian Kalashnikovs were bad, try a Chinese knock off). Where do you think these weapons are going? To the janjaweed. It appears that China will do anything to satisfy its ever-growing hunger for black gold, going so far as to arm radical Muslims that are murdering and raping thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
2) Besides supplying arms to Sudan, reports have also indicated that China has been sending arms to Zimbabwe. In the past, Zimbabwe was the so-called "breadbasket" of Africa because of its ability to grow large amounts of food; enough food to feed the people of other African countries. However, after Mugabe's election, the farmers and those associated with Zimbabwe's excellent food production were driven out and replaced with those unable to tend to the land2. Zimbabwe now cannot even feed its own people and was recently in the midst of hyperinflation3. China has been sending arms to Zimbabwe, and recently a South African port refused to unload a shipment of Chinese arms headed for Zimbabwe4. Zimbabwe is (was) known for being the breadbasket of Africa, so a possible conclusion to come to is that China is trying to bring back the infrastructure that once existed in Zimbabwe. Why? Well, if Zimbabwe has the capability to affect the food supply of nearly an entire continent, imagine the influence China could have in the continent if it assisted in bringing back Zimbabwe's infrastructure.
3) In looking back at other controversial Olympic meetings (1936 Berlin, 1956 Australia, 1980s Summer Olympics, etc.) it is hard to find a direct comparison to the situation at hand with China. Currently, China possesses a terrible human rights record, has an iron grip on Tibet, and has its eye on Taiwan. Remember, we have vowed that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would draw an immediate military response from the United States. Among other things, these cases present an interesting situation that appears to be different from most seen in the past.
I could go on about some other issues, especially China’s domestic human rights record, but I think that that situation is pretty self-evident.
There is one point that I shall concede to anyone who wants to debate this issue. If the holding of the Olympics in China increases international awareness of China’s despicable human rights record, then so be it.
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21143-2004Dec22.html
2. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200312/power
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/world/africa/02zimbabwe.html?ex=1304222400&en=e4f95916b4e5d098&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
4. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3822568.ece
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wednesday Night Fights...
I was not able to view the entirety of the Democratic Presidential Candidate debate last night, but when I first turned it on I knew it was going to be interesting.
1) Bosnia – Apparently, the question was directed at Senator Clinton and her somewhat fictional account of her trip to Bosnia back in the 90s. “We were under sniper fire…We had to run…No welcoming party…” etc. Video taken by CBS shows that Senator Clinton was exaggerating just a little bit. Look it up and be prepared to laugh if you haven’t seen it already.
Of course, Clinton replied with the usual politician response that everyone makes mistakes here. Obama backed her up by pointing out that the cameras and tapes are rolling everywhere they go and, as humans, they are going to make mistakes. One must not forget, though, that Hillary told this story several times to several different audiences.
2) Obama was asked about his association with a former member of the Weathermen. If you don’t know who the Weathermen were, they were a far left domestic terrorist group during the late 1960s and early 70s that bombed government buildings and protested the Vietnam War. Anyways, Obama served on board of the Woods Fund of Chicago with William Ayers, who is quoted as saying, ''I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.''
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63
Mr. Ayers also contributed to Obama’s campaign. When this was brought up by Hillary in the debate, Obama replied back that President Clinton pardoned two former Weathermen prior to leaving office in January 2001. Which one is worse? You decide. The funny thing is that both of these candidates are covered in dirt by their dealings with those members of the Weather Underground.
3) Next, Obama said that he would raise the capital gains tax. Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous both pointed out that government revenue increases whenever the capital gains tax decreases. Obama really didn’t have a good response to that besides something along the lines of, “We’ll look into it.” The problem with capital gains tax is that it taxes for inflationary gains. The numbers all say that decreasing capital gains tax is good for the economy. Besides, a tax on capital gains that is affected by inflation stinks.
http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/capgain/capgain.htm
4) Clinton: “I think that this is the first time that a President has gone to war without paying for it.”
Hmm…The government’s not trying to sell bonds like crazy, no one is planting Victory Gardens, I haven’t seen any recycling drives lately…Oh, wait! Look at this chart!
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODJjN2ZlNDJlMDZmNDFiNTk2OGRmMmQwZmQ5YmY5MGY=
And this article!
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/03/2545232
By the way, it’s not the President’s job to run the economy. Anyone who blames the state of the economy on the President needs a civics lesson.
Both Obama and Hillary said that they would try to fix the problem with the economy, with special emphasis on the housing market. Yet, neither one of them proposed how they were going to do it. It was the usual “go to my website” fluff.
These two need an economics refresher…
5) Guns. I love ‘em. The Second Amendment says I can have ‘em. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama failed to either fully agree or disagree with the D.C. Gun Ban. Clinton also said that she would reintroduce the absurd Assault Weapons Ban that reigned during her husband’s terms. First, liberals can’t seem to grasp the fact that criminals, those who are already set on breaking the law, aren’t going to give a hoot in hell about a gun control law. They are already breaking the law, why should another law stop them from using a gun? Instead, these laws are taking guns away from the citizens who use them lawfully and they won’t be able to defend themselves! Second, the target of the Assault Weapons Ban is not “assault weapons”, it is guns in general. Clinton cited the danger posed to our police forces when criminals have these “assault weapons”. Like I said, nothing is going to stop a crook from having one in the first place. If Senator Clinton knew the facts about guns and really cared about protecting police, then she would issue a ban on hunting rifles. An AR-15 (M16) owned by a civilian is nothing compared to a hunting rifle owned by the same. AR-15s shoot a varmint round: .223. In reality, the only major difference between an AR-15 and a .22 rifle is that the velocity of the AR-15 round is 3,000 fps. That’s it. If you want something that is designed to kill with one shot and cause as much damage as possible, you are going to use a hunting rifle, not a stupid AR-15. It’s that simple. It’s like putting a ban on 9mm pistols simply because the military uses them while leaving .45s outside the ban.
Senator Clinton also expressed that as President she would push for better tracking of illegal guns. Think about that and tell me if that makes sense. We can’t even track an illegal immigrant in this country, how on earth are we going to track an “illegal” gun?
6) On the topic of Affirmative Action, Senator Obama stated a couple times that race is still an issue in our society. I would just like to say that if Obama cares so much about race issues in America, he needs to remember a man by the name of Jeremiah Wright.
7) Both Senators Obama and Clinton stated that we need to look into the oil market to see if there has been any market manipulation concerning gas prices. Does supply and demand maybe ring a bell? Also, Senator Obama stated in one of his radio ads that Exxon is making $40 billion in profits while our prices still go up. Anyone who isn’t foolishly paranoid of this fact is smart enough to realize that those numbers do not reflect Exxon’s gains after regular business costs (maintenance, paying workers, new technology, etc.). To put the blame on the oil company simply because it’s making money is not a capitalist attitude; it’s more socialist than anything else.
Senator Clinton also proposed that we as the U.S. should stop putting oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and leave that extra oil in the market so as to reduce international prices. How on earth is the normal SPR supply going to reduce international oil prices enough where the sacrifice of neglecting the SPR will be worth it?
8) When asked if a direct attack on Israel by Iran should be taken as an attack on the US, neither candidate had the guts to say either yes or no. They both stated that such an attack would have serious implications, but they did not say that we as the US should interpret an attack in that way. On the topic of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the candidates presented ideas for diplomatic discussions and talks with Iran. Neither mentioned military action against Iran. As I sat watching the debate, I kept thinking of Neville Chamberlain before WWII.
Thoughts?
1) Bosnia – Apparently, the question was directed at Senator Clinton and her somewhat fictional account of her trip to Bosnia back in the 90s. “We were under sniper fire…We had to run…No welcoming party…” etc. Video taken by CBS shows that Senator Clinton was exaggerating just a little bit. Look it up and be prepared to laugh if you haven’t seen it already.
Of course, Clinton replied with the usual politician response that everyone makes mistakes here. Obama backed her up by pointing out that the cameras and tapes are rolling everywhere they go and, as humans, they are going to make mistakes. One must not forget, though, that Hillary told this story several times to several different audiences.
2) Obama was asked about his association with a former member of the Weathermen. If you don’t know who the Weathermen were, they were a far left domestic terrorist group during the late 1960s and early 70s that bombed government buildings and protested the Vietnam War. Anyways, Obama served on board of the Woods Fund of Chicago with William Ayers, who is quoted as saying, ''I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.''
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63
Mr. Ayers also contributed to Obama’s campaign. When this was brought up by Hillary in the debate, Obama replied back that President Clinton pardoned two former Weathermen prior to leaving office in January 2001. Which one is worse? You decide. The funny thing is that both of these candidates are covered in dirt by their dealings with those members of the Weather Underground.
3) Next, Obama said that he would raise the capital gains tax. Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous both pointed out that government revenue increases whenever the capital gains tax decreases. Obama really didn’t have a good response to that besides something along the lines of, “We’ll look into it.” The problem with capital gains tax is that it taxes for inflationary gains. The numbers all say that decreasing capital gains tax is good for the economy. Besides, a tax on capital gains that is affected by inflation stinks.
http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/capgain/capgain.htm
4) Clinton: “I think that this is the first time that a President has gone to war without paying for it.”
Hmm…The government’s not trying to sell bonds like crazy, no one is planting Victory Gardens, I haven’t seen any recycling drives lately…Oh, wait! Look at this chart!
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODJjN2ZlNDJlMDZmNDFiNTk2OGRmMmQwZmQ5YmY5MGY=
And this article!
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/03/2545232
By the way, it’s not the President’s job to run the economy. Anyone who blames the state of the economy on the President needs a civics lesson.
Both Obama and Hillary said that they would try to fix the problem with the economy, with special emphasis on the housing market. Yet, neither one of them proposed how they were going to do it. It was the usual “go to my website” fluff.
These two need an economics refresher…
5) Guns. I love ‘em. The Second Amendment says I can have ‘em. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama failed to either fully agree or disagree with the D.C. Gun Ban. Clinton also said that she would reintroduce the absurd Assault Weapons Ban that reigned during her husband’s terms. First, liberals can’t seem to grasp the fact that criminals, those who are already set on breaking the law, aren’t going to give a hoot in hell about a gun control law. They are already breaking the law, why should another law stop them from using a gun? Instead, these laws are taking guns away from the citizens who use them lawfully and they won’t be able to defend themselves! Second, the target of the Assault Weapons Ban is not “assault weapons”, it is guns in general. Clinton cited the danger posed to our police forces when criminals have these “assault weapons”. Like I said, nothing is going to stop a crook from having one in the first place. If Senator Clinton knew the facts about guns and really cared about protecting police, then she would issue a ban on hunting rifles. An AR-15 (M16) owned by a civilian is nothing compared to a hunting rifle owned by the same. AR-15s shoot a varmint round: .223. In reality, the only major difference between an AR-15 and a .22 rifle is that the velocity of the AR-15 round is 3,000 fps. That’s it. If you want something that is designed to kill with one shot and cause as much damage as possible, you are going to use a hunting rifle, not a stupid AR-15. It’s that simple. It’s like putting a ban on 9mm pistols simply because the military uses them while leaving .45s outside the ban.
Senator Clinton also expressed that as President she would push for better tracking of illegal guns. Think about that and tell me if that makes sense. We can’t even track an illegal immigrant in this country, how on earth are we going to track an “illegal” gun?
6) On the topic of Affirmative Action, Senator Obama stated a couple times that race is still an issue in our society. I would just like to say that if Obama cares so much about race issues in America, he needs to remember a man by the name of Jeremiah Wright.
7) Both Senators Obama and Clinton stated that we need to look into the oil market to see if there has been any market manipulation concerning gas prices. Does supply and demand maybe ring a bell? Also, Senator Obama stated in one of his radio ads that Exxon is making $40 billion in profits while our prices still go up. Anyone who isn’t foolishly paranoid of this fact is smart enough to realize that those numbers do not reflect Exxon’s gains after regular business costs (maintenance, paying workers, new technology, etc.). To put the blame on the oil company simply because it’s making money is not a capitalist attitude; it’s more socialist than anything else.
Senator Clinton also proposed that we as the U.S. should stop putting oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and leave that extra oil in the market so as to reduce international prices. How on earth is the normal SPR supply going to reduce international oil prices enough where the sacrifice of neglecting the SPR will be worth it?
8) When asked if a direct attack on Israel by Iran should be taken as an attack on the US, neither candidate had the guts to say either yes or no. They both stated that such an attack would have serious implications, but they did not say that we as the US should interpret an attack in that way. On the topic of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the candidates presented ideas for diplomatic discussions and talks with Iran. Neither mentioned military action against Iran. As I sat watching the debate, I kept thinking of Neville Chamberlain before WWII.
Thoughts?
Thursday, April 3, 2008
In Sickness and in Faith
This is from March's Breakpoint Worldview magazine. I wanted to share it with you guys because it really touched me.
In Sickness and in Faith
By Kim Moreland
Overcoming the Darkness
What should have been for me a relatively simple operation turned into a 15-day hospital odyssey because of a life-threatening infection. The great torment in my soul increased my miseries—I felt that God had turned His back on me. Further, I became plagued by medicinally induced nightmares of doom and dying. After the medication was discontinued, the nightmares ceased, but the darkness persisted.[1] Fervently, I prayed and pleaded with God to give me peace and show me His light. His answer was a continued sense of impenetrable blackness.
My experience—the darkness of my soul—is not uncommon for Christians. The key question is not whether we experience it, but how we react to it when we walk through those terrifying and soul-struggling times. Does the blackness of the moment trigger a person to denounce or lose his or her faith after such a shattering experience? Or does he or she continue believing in God’s divine sovereignty, through faith and hope, despite impenetrable darkness?[2]
SEARCHING FOR LIGHT
All things being equal I felt okay when I first woke up from surgery. My husband, Terry, was waiting for me in my room and spent the first two nights with me, which gave me a great sense of comfort. My daughter, grandson, and some siblings showed up the next day to sit with me. Sometimes I was awake and sometimes I was drifting during their conversations, but it did not matter because their chatter sent waves of peace through me. My son, more siblings, nieces and nephews, and aunties visited too. Relatives who lived too far away to visit called daily, and friends came to cheer me up. Their visits generated in me a wonderful sense of well-being.
However, instead of getting better, I was beginning to feel worse. By day five or six, I was having trouble pushing my IV pole through the halls to exercise, and in my mind, a sense of darkness and panic started descending.
Sickness is a very messy business. A day after surgery, my left arm started to hurt. I had developed phlebitis, an inflammation of the vein, which is painful. A nurse had to start another IV in a different site. After a day or so, that site became too inflamed to keep the needle in place, so they had to start a third IV. Around the time of the fourth IV insertion, with both arms inflamed, my chest started to hurt, and it became difficult to breath or move.
Images of blood clots flooded my mind, despite being injected with blood thinners. My doctor ordered a CT scan of my lungs and abdomen. My stomach started hurting, and an intermittent fever became a steady fever.
Steadily through this process, dark thoughts of dying crept into my mind. The only Scripture that I could remember was Psalm 23, and those six verses that should have brought me succor and peace did not.
A PERSISTENT DARKNESSAs I lay there feeling utterly sick and helpless, I ruminated on Chuck Colson’s and Richard John Neuhaus’s reflections about their experiences with life-threatening diseases. Why did I not have a feeling of calmness and peace like they did?
In the March and April 1987 issues of Jubilee, my friend (and boss!) Chuck Colson wrote his reflections about his ordeal with stomach cancer and infection. “I saw in the confrontation with fear and suffering that there is nothing for which God does not pour out His grace abundantly,” he recalled. “I felt total peace—and great thankfulness that a merciful God had brought me to that recovery room.”
Chuck, too, developed an infection and had a reaction to pain medication that gave him hallucinations like “dark creatures climbing walls, buildings collapsing, endless tunnels.” But when his medication wore off, he stopped having hallucinations. My darkness persisted.
A number of years before my dreadful illness, I had read Neuhaus’s book As I Lay Dying. Neuhaus suffered a multitude of traumas, starting with an exploding tumor and, a very short time later, a splenectomy. His ordeal included a coma and a visitation by two angels, or “presences” as he put it. The “two ‘presences’” told him, “Everything is ready now,” giving him a decision to stay and finish his ministry, or “go with them.” If he had gone with them, Neuhaus knew that “something would happen between here and where we were going, and that something is called death.”[3]
“At the time of crisis and the months of recovery following,” Neuhaus writes, “I was never once afraid.”[4] But I was desperately afraid. I did not want to die and leave my husband, my children, my grandchild, my beloved extended family, or my wonderful friends. I could not pray: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”[5] I was unable to articulate consciously what I felt. Theologian Vigen Guroian, however, ably expresses it in Life’s Living toward Dying: “Death would not be so bitter were it not that love makes life so sweet. Nor would death inspire such fear and dread were it not that it cuts us off from those whom we love and who love us.”[6] So while I could think of no other verse but Psalm 23, and was unable to pray or recite it, like Job, I continued “to argue my case with God.”[7] God, where are you?
WHERE WAS GOD?
Finally, the CT and blood test came back showing I had a massive infection called peritonitis. That morning with scalpel in hand, my doctor along with a nurse came to drain the infection. After my doctor reopened the incision, a thick yellowish-brown puss oozed from the wound. She pressed on my abdomen for a long while, forcing as much of the killer infection out. An hour later, another doctor and team inserted a PICC line into my arm.[8] Later, I was to have a second CT to see if I would need a second surgery. But where was God in my time of darkness and desperation?
I waited for news. Thankfully Penny, one of my siblings, came and sat with me for two days. She helped me to the bathroom, held my hand, and waited with me. Other family and friends came to visit, helping me with various needs. My beloved husband was there everyday after work, but where was God?
After being released to recover at home, I contemplated my fear and sense of God’s desertion. I pondered God’s purposes.[9] I pondered Christ’s suffering and resurrection, and I pondered His promise to send the Comforter. But where were They?
Then slowly as the days and weeks went by, I started realizing that though God was silent, He was still there. He was there when my wonderful family and friends came to visit and comfort me. He was there when each person helped shoulder some of my suffering. He was there morning and night, day after day, week after week, month after month, when Terry cleaned and repacked my wound.
In a search for greater understanding of my plight, I read different prayers and devotions like this section from a Puritan prayer, “The All-Good”:
Grant me to feel thee in fire, and food and every providence,and to see that thy many gifts and creaturesare but thy hands and fingers taking hold of me . . . [10]
Providentially, years before I became sick, God had already given me a gift that would help calm my mind during my recovery. In a 2003 First Things article, Carol Zaleski wrote about Mother Teresa’s struggle with spiritual darkness. Mother Teresa had answered God’s call to minister to those who lived in the gutters of India. After she started her new ministry, she experienced, writes Zaleski, “feelings of doubt, loneliness, and abandonment. God seemed absent, heaven empty, and bitterest of all, her own suffering seemed to count for nothing, ‘ . . . just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.’” [11] In the newest biography of Mother Teresa, I learned that despite her “terrible darkness,” this extraordinarily faithful woman would “refuse nothing to God . . . ” She continued her work in the gutters of India bringing Jesus to the poorest of the poor, and in “loneliness” and “doubt” she continued to worship and glorify Him. [12]
GROWING THROUGH SUFFERING
Months later, when I remembered Mother Teresa’s experience, it dawned on me that, instead of directly giving me a sense of peace or sending heavenly angels of comfort, God allowed me to experience His silence so I could grow in Him. As we ought to express our utmost gratitude to God despite suffering, I endeavor to do so. I am also eternally grateful for others, like Mother Teresa, having traveled through the travail of God’s silence, because their words have been a source of strength in the face of my feelings of abandonment.
If it be consistent with thy eternal counsels,the purpose of thy grace,and the great ends of thy glory,then bestow upon me the blessings of thy comforts;If not, let me resign myself to thy wiser determinations. [13]
Thirteen months later, I can see my suffering in a clearer light. As Oswald Chambers writes, “Has God trusted you with a silence—a silence that is big with meaning? God’s silences are His answers . . . His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into a marvelous understanding of Himself.”
My fright, mourning, and confusion have mellowed to gratitude. I have mourned the blackness and scariness of God’s turned shoulder and silence, but as Chambers asserts, “you will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible, with an absolute silence, not of despair, but of pleasure, because He saw that you could stand a bigger revelation.”[14]
My God, let me resign myself to thy wiser determinations.
While I have given a great many nods to living in the present moment and trusting completely in God’s design and purpose, oftentimes I found myself trying to straddle the past and future: “I should have done this or that, or I hope this or that does or does not happen.” As for an encounter with death, “[t]he worst thing is,” writes Neuhaus, “not to be changed by the encounter.”[15]
I have changed. Living in the present moment has become easier. I am truly grateful to God that He put loving people in my life to help shoulder my burden, and I am utterly grateful that He allowed me to live.
Oh blessed Father, help me to resign myself to thy wiser determinations.
Lastly, I have made the very personal struggles of my body, mind, and spirit public so that when you or someone near you walks through dark and scary times, you will remember or share with others that God is there even if He is silent. Continue always to have faith and hope in Him, despite the fears, doubts, and soul-struggling bleakness you experience, because God is carrying out His divine plan for you.
In Sickness and in Faith
By Kim Moreland
Overcoming the Darkness
What should have been for me a relatively simple operation turned into a 15-day hospital odyssey because of a life-threatening infection. The great torment in my soul increased my miseries—I felt that God had turned His back on me. Further, I became plagued by medicinally induced nightmares of doom and dying. After the medication was discontinued, the nightmares ceased, but the darkness persisted.[1] Fervently, I prayed and pleaded with God to give me peace and show me His light. His answer was a continued sense of impenetrable blackness.
My experience—the darkness of my soul—is not uncommon for Christians. The key question is not whether we experience it, but how we react to it when we walk through those terrifying and soul-struggling times. Does the blackness of the moment trigger a person to denounce or lose his or her faith after such a shattering experience? Or does he or she continue believing in God’s divine sovereignty, through faith and hope, despite impenetrable darkness?[2]
SEARCHING FOR LIGHT
All things being equal I felt okay when I first woke up from surgery. My husband, Terry, was waiting for me in my room and spent the first two nights with me, which gave me a great sense of comfort. My daughter, grandson, and some siblings showed up the next day to sit with me. Sometimes I was awake and sometimes I was drifting during their conversations, but it did not matter because their chatter sent waves of peace through me. My son, more siblings, nieces and nephews, and aunties visited too. Relatives who lived too far away to visit called daily, and friends came to cheer me up. Their visits generated in me a wonderful sense of well-being.
However, instead of getting better, I was beginning to feel worse. By day five or six, I was having trouble pushing my IV pole through the halls to exercise, and in my mind, a sense of darkness and panic started descending.
Sickness is a very messy business. A day after surgery, my left arm started to hurt. I had developed phlebitis, an inflammation of the vein, which is painful. A nurse had to start another IV in a different site. After a day or so, that site became too inflamed to keep the needle in place, so they had to start a third IV. Around the time of the fourth IV insertion, with both arms inflamed, my chest started to hurt, and it became difficult to breath or move.
Images of blood clots flooded my mind, despite being injected with blood thinners. My doctor ordered a CT scan of my lungs and abdomen. My stomach started hurting, and an intermittent fever became a steady fever.
Steadily through this process, dark thoughts of dying crept into my mind. The only Scripture that I could remember was Psalm 23, and those six verses that should have brought me succor and peace did not.
A PERSISTENT DARKNESSAs I lay there feeling utterly sick and helpless, I ruminated on Chuck Colson’s and Richard John Neuhaus’s reflections about their experiences with life-threatening diseases. Why did I not have a feeling of calmness and peace like they did?
In the March and April 1987 issues of Jubilee, my friend (and boss!) Chuck Colson wrote his reflections about his ordeal with stomach cancer and infection. “I saw in the confrontation with fear and suffering that there is nothing for which God does not pour out His grace abundantly,” he recalled. “I felt total peace—and great thankfulness that a merciful God had brought me to that recovery room.”
Chuck, too, developed an infection and had a reaction to pain medication that gave him hallucinations like “dark creatures climbing walls, buildings collapsing, endless tunnels.” But when his medication wore off, he stopped having hallucinations. My darkness persisted.
A number of years before my dreadful illness, I had read Neuhaus’s book As I Lay Dying. Neuhaus suffered a multitude of traumas, starting with an exploding tumor and, a very short time later, a splenectomy. His ordeal included a coma and a visitation by two angels, or “presences” as he put it. The “two ‘presences’” told him, “Everything is ready now,” giving him a decision to stay and finish his ministry, or “go with them.” If he had gone with them, Neuhaus knew that “something would happen between here and where we were going, and that something is called death.”[3]
“At the time of crisis and the months of recovery following,” Neuhaus writes, “I was never once afraid.”[4] But I was desperately afraid. I did not want to die and leave my husband, my children, my grandchild, my beloved extended family, or my wonderful friends. I could not pray: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”[5] I was unable to articulate consciously what I felt. Theologian Vigen Guroian, however, ably expresses it in Life’s Living toward Dying: “Death would not be so bitter were it not that love makes life so sweet. Nor would death inspire such fear and dread were it not that it cuts us off from those whom we love and who love us.”[6] So while I could think of no other verse but Psalm 23, and was unable to pray or recite it, like Job, I continued “to argue my case with God.”[7] God, where are you?
WHERE WAS GOD?
Finally, the CT and blood test came back showing I had a massive infection called peritonitis. That morning with scalpel in hand, my doctor along with a nurse came to drain the infection. After my doctor reopened the incision, a thick yellowish-brown puss oozed from the wound. She pressed on my abdomen for a long while, forcing as much of the killer infection out. An hour later, another doctor and team inserted a PICC line into my arm.[8] Later, I was to have a second CT to see if I would need a second surgery. But where was God in my time of darkness and desperation?
I waited for news. Thankfully Penny, one of my siblings, came and sat with me for two days. She helped me to the bathroom, held my hand, and waited with me. Other family and friends came to visit, helping me with various needs. My beloved husband was there everyday after work, but where was God?
After being released to recover at home, I contemplated my fear and sense of God’s desertion. I pondered God’s purposes.[9] I pondered Christ’s suffering and resurrection, and I pondered His promise to send the Comforter. But where were They?
Then slowly as the days and weeks went by, I started realizing that though God was silent, He was still there. He was there when my wonderful family and friends came to visit and comfort me. He was there when each person helped shoulder some of my suffering. He was there morning and night, day after day, week after week, month after month, when Terry cleaned and repacked my wound.
In a search for greater understanding of my plight, I read different prayers and devotions like this section from a Puritan prayer, “The All-Good”:
Grant me to feel thee in fire, and food and every providence,and to see that thy many gifts and creaturesare but thy hands and fingers taking hold of me . . . [10]
Providentially, years before I became sick, God had already given me a gift that would help calm my mind during my recovery. In a 2003 First Things article, Carol Zaleski wrote about Mother Teresa’s struggle with spiritual darkness. Mother Teresa had answered God’s call to minister to those who lived in the gutters of India. After she started her new ministry, she experienced, writes Zaleski, “feelings of doubt, loneliness, and abandonment. God seemed absent, heaven empty, and bitterest of all, her own suffering seemed to count for nothing, ‘ . . . just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.’” [11] In the newest biography of Mother Teresa, I learned that despite her “terrible darkness,” this extraordinarily faithful woman would “refuse nothing to God . . . ” She continued her work in the gutters of India bringing Jesus to the poorest of the poor, and in “loneliness” and “doubt” she continued to worship and glorify Him. [12]
GROWING THROUGH SUFFERING
Months later, when I remembered Mother Teresa’s experience, it dawned on me that, instead of directly giving me a sense of peace or sending heavenly angels of comfort, God allowed me to experience His silence so I could grow in Him. As we ought to express our utmost gratitude to God despite suffering, I endeavor to do so. I am also eternally grateful for others, like Mother Teresa, having traveled through the travail of God’s silence, because their words have been a source of strength in the face of my feelings of abandonment.
If it be consistent with thy eternal counsels,the purpose of thy grace,and the great ends of thy glory,then bestow upon me the blessings of thy comforts;If not, let me resign myself to thy wiser determinations. [13]
Thirteen months later, I can see my suffering in a clearer light. As Oswald Chambers writes, “Has God trusted you with a silence—a silence that is big with meaning? God’s silences are His answers . . . His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into a marvelous understanding of Himself.”
My fright, mourning, and confusion have mellowed to gratitude. I have mourned the blackness and scariness of God’s turned shoulder and silence, but as Chambers asserts, “you will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible, with an absolute silence, not of despair, but of pleasure, because He saw that you could stand a bigger revelation.”[14]
My God, let me resign myself to thy wiser determinations.
While I have given a great many nods to living in the present moment and trusting completely in God’s design and purpose, oftentimes I found myself trying to straddle the past and future: “I should have done this or that, or I hope this or that does or does not happen.” As for an encounter with death, “[t]he worst thing is,” writes Neuhaus, “not to be changed by the encounter.”[15]
I have changed. Living in the present moment has become easier. I am truly grateful to God that He put loving people in my life to help shoulder my burden, and I am utterly grateful that He allowed me to live.
Oh blessed Father, help me to resign myself to thy wiser determinations.
Lastly, I have made the very personal struggles of my body, mind, and spirit public so that when you or someone near you walks through dark and scary times, you will remember or share with others that God is there even if He is silent. Continue always to have faith and hope in Him, despite the fears, doubts, and soul-struggling bleakness you experience, because God is carrying out His divine plan for you.
Boxing like one beating the air...
Throughout the past month, our family has gone through some difficult times. Most importantly, two relatives passed away within nearly three weeks of each other. One was especially dear to me. After we received news of his death, I tried to fight all of the emotions, feelings, attitudes, etc. that accompany such a loss. I felt like as if I couldn’t continue on with my life if I “succumbed” to these repercussions; I thought I had to rise above them. Because of the first death, we were away from home for more than a week. School started piling up and I had to request an extension on my homework dates. Once we got back, I tried to fit back into my normal routine. School was going fine, but I didn’t have the same motivation as I did prior to leaving. It seemed pointless. I started being moody and lethargic when it came to my tasks. I couldn’t figure out why things weren’t going smoothly. Sure, I was getting things done, but what was the point?
I fought all of this for a couple weeks until the final blow connected and knocked me out cold onto the canvas.
I didn’t like it.
It gave me time to think, though. The more I thought about things, the more I realized I was drifting away in my relationship with God. Maybe I was still the same old person when it came to my actions, but my motivations for doing things were different, and I certainly wasn’t reading my Bible daily. I was fighting things that I shouldn’t have been fighting. I came out swinging at these occurrences in my life because I thought I had to in order to maintain my composure. Not only did I walk into the ring with the wrong attitude, I walked in there by myself. In fact, walking in was a bad decision in the first place.
There are some things in life that we can fight, and when we do we should go in there and fight knowing that we are not alone. But there are also some things that we cannot change, things we cannot deal with on our own. It was revealed to me that I just wasn’t giving this up to God. Maybe sometime in the past I had asked for strength, but then again my view was that I had to fight this…alone.
Life is wonderful once you come to realize that God is sovereign. Sometimes we step into the ring and start fighting, only to be knocked down because of the fact that we deserve it. Once you’re at the bottom you can actually see how foolish it was for you to fight in the first place and how wise it would have been to give certain things over to God. Everything happens for a reason and when I look back at this series of events, I can say that I am thankful that some things happened when they did. If they had happened in some other order over a long period of time, I cannot say that they would have had the same effect. Worship is all that I am responding to all that He is, and that includes His sovereignty.
“But those who trust in the Lord shall renew their strength…”
I fought all of this for a couple weeks until the final blow connected and knocked me out cold onto the canvas.
I didn’t like it.
It gave me time to think, though. The more I thought about things, the more I realized I was drifting away in my relationship with God. Maybe I was still the same old person when it came to my actions, but my motivations for doing things were different, and I certainly wasn’t reading my Bible daily. I was fighting things that I shouldn’t have been fighting. I came out swinging at these occurrences in my life because I thought I had to in order to maintain my composure. Not only did I walk into the ring with the wrong attitude, I walked in there by myself. In fact, walking in was a bad decision in the first place.
There are some things in life that we can fight, and when we do we should go in there and fight knowing that we are not alone. But there are also some things that we cannot change, things we cannot deal with on our own. It was revealed to me that I just wasn’t giving this up to God. Maybe sometime in the past I had asked for strength, but then again my view was that I had to fight this…alone.
Life is wonderful once you come to realize that God is sovereign. Sometimes we step into the ring and start fighting, only to be knocked down because of the fact that we deserve it. Once you’re at the bottom you can actually see how foolish it was for you to fight in the first place and how wise it would have been to give certain things over to God. Everything happens for a reason and when I look back at this series of events, I can say that I am thankful that some things happened when they did. If they had happened in some other order over a long period of time, I cannot say that they would have had the same effect. Worship is all that I am responding to all that He is, and that includes His sovereignty.
“But those who trust in the Lord shall renew their strength…”
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