Recently, I was sitting in a small café here in Draganesti. It was our all-squad Sabbath, a day off from ministry committed to resting well and soaking in the Spirit so that we’re able to serve from a place of overflow, peace, and trust in the Lord. Several of us left the mission house where the 38 of us are staying this month, walked past the stray dogs that seem to litter the streets here, and went to a coffee shop for some highly needed calls back home. After getting off the phone with my girlfriend Marissa, I had an experience I was in no way prepared for.
I looked up from my computer to see a small Romanian woman staring at me. She was walking slowly, and had such terrible cataracts and cloudiness in her left eye that it looked as if it was glowing.
In that moment, I heard the Lord say clearly to me, “Heal her.”
Immediately, I looked away from the woman and back at my computer. A pit formed in my stomach, and I couldn’t inhale fully. “God,” I thought, “I have no idea how to heal someone. I don’t have a translator with me, and she probably doesn’t even speak English. How is she going to understand any of what I want to say?” However, I’ve known Jesus long enough to recognize his voice, and this time was unmistakable.
I got out of my seat and walked over to the woman. As is typical for older women here, she had her hair tied up with a scarf, and wore leggings, a thick colored skirt, and a floral sweater to keep the autumn chill away. “Buna ziua,” I said to greet her. I told her my name and asked in English if I could pray for her. She shook her head, clearly not understanding. She took another look at my face, scrunching her eyebrows in confusion.
And pushed my hand aside, and walked away.
I haven’t seen her again. She clearly had no clue what I wanted, and with no way to communicate, there was nothing for me to do. Obviously, I was confused. I’d unmistakably heard the Spirit tell me, not to talk to this woman or even pray for her, but to heal her. And yet, when I stepped out and trusted him, there was simply nothing to do.
My initial reaction was anger and confusion. I assumed I’d failed in some way, that if I hadn’t hesitated or had prayed over her sooner, then the Lord’s word would have come about. And I was upset with God. I felt his presence with such certainty, heard his voice clearly, and yet, when I stepped out in faith, nothing happened.
I talked with a couple friends on the squad who reminded me that at least I had been faithful, and maybe the point of this wasn’t so much for her sake, but for my own. But I was still confused over why the Lord would speak so clearly, and then seem to not show up at all. Walking home, I was still mulling over what had happened, when the Father spoke something far more confusing and painful over me: “It hurts, doesn’t it?”
I was taking my frustration and pain to the Lord as if he had caused it, never expecting that instead, he would share it.
In the Gospels, we see story after story of Jesus healing broken and weak people—giving the blind their sight, making the lame walk, curing leprosy. But now I wonder how many more times he saw suffering and was unable to heal them. How much did Christ suffer over those he couldn’t heal—not because he didn’t have the power, but because he loved them too much to force them to receive what they didn’t want?
For every person Jesus met with, how many more refused to come to him, or didn’t even realize they needed to?
“To love is to suffer,” He told me. And now I wonder how much suffering for the unhealed, the untouched, the lost who never will be found, is a painful, tear-filled, and greatly unused pathway to the Father’s heart. Is this the way he loves the world? How do I begin to share such a heavy weight with him?
I doubt I’ll ever be able to answer that question. But if there’s anything I’m beginning to learn, it’s that for any pain or suffering we feel, the Father feels it unfathomably more than we do. We think we ache; he hurts far worse than we do.
If there is any answer to the storm of suffering we feel, I think it has to lie in the heart of our infinitely loving, infinitely suffering God.
“What does this mean for life, that God suffers? I’m only beginning to learn. When we think of God the Creator, then we naturally see the rich and powerful of the earth as his closest image. But when we hold stead before us the sight of God the Redeemer redeeming from sin and suffering by suffering, then perhaps we must look elsewhere for earth’s closest icon. Where? Perhaps to the face of that woman with soup tin in hand and bloated child at side. Perhaps that is why Jesus said that inasmuch as we show love to such a one, we show love to him.” ~Nicholas Wolterstorff
