I'm not really the right person to write about suffering,
because I'm terrible at it.
I should be good at it by now, but I'm just not.
This above picture of Jesus really hit me this past week.
To follow Jesus, like we all want to,
literally means to pick up our own cross, like Jesus!
You know, to "follow Him"?
Like follow the leader and do all He does.
I know there is joy to be found in suffering.
I have not found that joy yet.
I know that joy will come.
Maybe it comes when we die.
I'm a big baby.
I never want suffering, the suffering I'm being given.
(it is a gift you know)
Whether it's someone close to me suffering and I'm helpless to help,
or it is myself, my own inner and physical suffering,
I don't want it.
OH, I tell myself, that my suffering is meant for me and
that I couldn't handle anyone else's suffering.
But I still don't want it.
I try to bargain and beg God,
"Please God, let me coast a while with no suffering."
"I'll give up something, I'll sacrifice something, I promise"
"No, please God, not this!"
"Really? God, I can NOT handle this! YOU think I can, but I can't!!"
I have tears just typing that.
I'm right back in the emergency room with little Simeon here.
A week ago Simeon ended up with an eye infection that
turned into dacrocystitis.
He had a pocket of fluid beside his eye.
This is something that could, I guess happen to anyone at anytime.
Lucky us.
Let me back up here.
Wednesday that week, I took him in because his eye had swollen almost shut.
The doctor put him on some drops.
I gave him the drops for 1 day.
The next day, his eye did not get any better, it even seemed worse.
I took him in again, but it was Friday afternoon by this point,
so in our smaller-ish town, there was no way to get a CT Scan
except to go through the emergency room at the hospital.
so off we went.
They found he did indeed have dacrocystitis, only treatable with
IV antibiotics.
We in our smaller-ish size town
do not have any pediatric ophthalmologists
so they sent us via ambulance to the University of Minnesota Hospital,
because it was very likely he would need surgery.
This long ride has to go down as one of the very most hardest things
I've had to do.
Ride in the front of an ambulance, with a complete stranger,
trying to make small talk, while my baby is in the back,
and all I want to do is cry. And pray.
(not enough seatbelts in the back in our ambulances in our smaller-ish size town)
Here we are at 3 a.m. finally in a room for the "night".
I tell you, watching your child suffer in any way, never ever gets easier.
Never.
It's such a helpless feeling,
as the doctors and nurses are poking and prodding and hurting him,
he looks up at you and you cannot do anything.
It's a feeling of betrayal.
a feeling of abandonment.
I'm right there, telling him they are helping him and that he's such a good boy,
but he's looking at me like, "Why don't you make them stop?"
(waiting for the MRI)
They put him out twice.
Once for the MRI
and an hour or two later for surgery.
Waiting in the waiting room while your baby is in surgery,
is another one of those very hard things.
I cry and pray.
And cry and pray.
I memorize the pictures.
Children are so resilient.
Here he is the night after surgery.
2nd night, still needed to keep a patch over his eye.
His eyes are very very sensitive to the light now.
Mornings and evenings are the worst.
He has a lot of drainage still coming out too.
We go for his 1 week check up Monday (tomorrow).
Hoping all is well and his sensitivity to light gets better.
This little boy is making me a saint.
We came home to 3 kids with the flu.
I have a bladder/kidney infection I can't seem to get rid of.
Suffering, if it does one thing,
it brings us closer to Jesus.
He gives us just a little more than we can handle,
so we have to turn to Him.
He will see us through.
He is a gentle and loving God.
I can't remember what saint said this,
"If you do not have any crosses in life,
you better get down on your knees and pray for some!"
Suffering has meaning.
It can be a gift.
An incredible gift.
If we just let God give it to us.
Strength, that is.
And maybe some wisdom to better help others.
Maybe it's just GRACE.
Grace to offer our sufferings for others.
Grace to better our souls.
Grace.
There is Grace in suffering.
“It is not so much what people suffer that makes the world mysterious; it is rather how much they miss when they suffer. They seem to forget that even as children they made obstacles in their games in order to have something to overcome. Why, then, when they grow into man’s estate, should there not be prizes won by effort and struggle? Can-not the spirit of man rise with adversity as the bird rises against the resistance of the wind? Do not the game fish swim upstream? Must not the chisel cut away the marble to bring out the form? Must not the seed falling to the ground die before it can spring forth into life? Must not grapes be crushed that there may be wine to drink, and wheat ground that there may be bread to eat? Why then cannot pain be made redemption? Why under the alchemy of Divine Love cannot crosses be turned into crucifixes? Why cannot chastisements be regarded as penances? Why cannot we use a cross to become God-like? We cannot become like Him in His Power; we cannot become like Him in His Knowledge. There is only one way we can become like Him, and that is in the way He bore His sorrows and His Cross. And that way was with love. It is love that makes pain bearable.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (About Crosses)
