Those who suffer most, God uses most –a friend acquainted, with suffering.

Tuesday: Somber news overshadowed my day –an old friend’s beautiful daughter who worked for a foundation providing organ transplants (after receiving one of her own) has died of cancer. Heavy with sadness, I went about my chores while snow swirled and the thermometer plunged.

Later, cooking salmon for supper, another dinner flashed through my mind. Then it was eggplant sizzling in a hot pan. It began to stick so I added a little oil. Mistake.

Flames rose, spread to the curtains at the open window, then jumped to the floor. I screamed. Jim came running. The trauma of that long ago night still catches my breath. Our lives would never be the same.

If the deliverance from Egypt is the central story of the Hebrew people and the cross is central to the New Testament, that blaze is the defining event of our marriage.

I drove to the ER and walked the hospital corridors barefoot rather than take time to find shoes. It’s only after all these years that I remember Yahweh told Moses to remove his shoes in the presence of God’s holiness, revealed in a burning bush. We, too, encountered this holy God through fire.

Jim suffered third-degree burns on his arm and hands, snuffing out the flames with towels. Afterward his skin was peeled away appointment by miserable appointment so healing would come.

One evening Jim, a practical kind of guy who wasn’t sold on Christianity, sat on a friend’s sofa and placed his life in Jesus’ hands. At the same time, I opened my eyes to the presence of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit living within me. What might have destroyed us instead saved our young, struggling marriage.

A few weeks ago we received a prayer card signed by our church staff, who know we’re going through stuff. Marty Christian, children’s program director, wrote a note on the card recalling how Jesus responded when His friend Lazarus was dying.

He didn’t come when first called. When He arrived Lazarus was already in his tomb, dead four days, his sisters in despair. Jesus saw Mary and Martha weeping and wept, too.

Twenty years ago I stepped into Lazarus’ dark tomb cut into a hillside in Bethany. I sat on the cold stone bench where his wrapped body once lay and imagined what it was like when his muffled ears heard Jesus call, “Lazarus, you come out of the tomb!”

Did life slowly seep into his veins as his heart began to thump? Did his muscles quiver with surging energy? Did his eyes squint like mine when he stepped into the light of day?

Death couldn’t hold Lazarus when Jesus called; weeping and mourning turned to joy.

Our kitchen fire was one of those times for us.

The scars that remain say at our lowest point God allowed Jim to walk through fire. He never once pointed a finger at me, evidence grace and love were at work.

All of us on planet earth endure suffering. The cross is central to our faith because sovereign suffering was nailed there. There is more to the story, good news that followed, but without a Suffering Servant there is no empty grave. No story. No hope.

I don’t understand why a loving God permits suffering on an incomprehensible scope. Yet the winds this wintry night whisper we don’t weep alone.

Our Lord accepts what we place into His scarred hands, He weeps with us as I wept this morning, although I never met my old friend’s child. I’m learning to trust that Jesus is intimately present wherever suffering exists, that tears may continue for an endless night but joy comes in the morning.

If we’re intentionally garbed in God’s compassion we can enter into the suffering of others, too. And we must. In this day it’s primarily through our own hands that His blessings flow . . . or are withheld, although we never encourage another soul without the Spirit’s help. God may be out of our sight, but we are never out of His.

I sensed Marty Christian understands this because he closed his note with, “Rest in God’s love for you. Rest in His suffering.”

If you’re in a furnace right now, lean into Isaiah 43:2 (NIV), which Jim claimed as his own:

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

This blog appears at the start of Advent for Celtic Christians. Forty days to prepare for Christmas. At our house we’ll light a candle each evening, a small flame awaiting the One who brought light to a dark world.

All will be well.

In memory of Maikki Nan Newton, https://www.thellf.org/how-to-help/in-memory-of/

Texting Thru Recovery/ indianagazette.com

(Photos: 1999 in Bethany, within walking distance of Jerusalem; candles and Josiah in Princeton by Tara.)