Archive for the 'suffering' Category

Page 3 of 9

Fukushima First Baptist Church

Published on March 31, 2011 in suffering. 2 Comments

Tim Challies links to the web site of a pastor of a church ravaged by the Tsunami and nuclear accident:

Yesterday a reader of this site sent me a link to an interesting series of blog posts—posts written by Pastor Akira Sato, who is the pastor for the Fukushima First Baptist Church, near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The email included this poignant paragraph:”Yesterday (Friday, March 18) one member who has been with us since the disaster had received an order from his company and left for work in the nuclear plant. (He is a leader of the plumbing job). As the family of God, knowing the departing pains of his loved ones, in tears we dispatched the brother with prayers. He left here with the Lord. Beside him, there are others, our precious members, who have been working hard at the plant. O, Lord, please protect them with your almighty hand! I beg you, please! ‘Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, ….that thine hand might be with me, and that wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.’ (1 Chronicles 4:10)”

Here are several other excerpts from the pastor’s blogs:

[March 13] This has been triple disasters. Because of the quake, some member’s house was partially destroyed. I still haven’t been able to get in touch with the families who live near the beach. JR Tomioka station has been washed away by the tsunami. The city was utterly destroyed. You have already heard of the accident of Fukushima first nuclear power plant. All the residents were forced to evacuate, and my church members had to get on a bus without any belongings and sent to schools and gyms separately. It’s been hard to find out how they are doing. . .

Read more here.

Japan’s tiny miracle

Published on March 16, 2011 in News and suffering. 0 Comments

Time magazine:

Amid the silent corpses a baby cried out—and Japan met its tiniest miracle.

On March 14, soldiers from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces went door to door in Ishinomaki, a coastal town northeast of Senda, pulling bodies from homes that had been flattened by the earthquake and tsunami. More accustomed to hearing the crunching of rubble and the sloshing of mud than sounds of life, they dismissed the baby’s cry as a mistake. Until they heard it again.

Click here to read the article.

More pictures of the surreal carnage in Japan

Published on March 15, 2011 in Photography and suffering. 0 Comments

Pray for Japan.

Here for the rest of this photo collection.

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled

Published on February 25, 2011 in suffering and Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Read Genesis 12-28 and notice again that this is not the sort of story anyone would have made up.  And, be reminded that though we cannot understand the events of life, we can be confident that God is putting the pieces of the puzzle together for His people.

These are troubling times.  Yesterday, I was called to the hospital for one of our flock who had only hours to live.  This follows a week with a funeral and an open heart surgery, continued battles with cancer, and news that a young man from my community in Iowa, the son of good friends, was in a serious accident with potential damage to his spine.

Never mind Egypt and the economy, Momar and the price of oil.

Yesterday, when I prayed with our friend at the hospital and her family, I quoted John 14:1-6 before I prayed.  ”Let not your hearts be troubled.  Ye believe in God.  Believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you . . . I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father except by me.”  If you are troubled today, be encouraged to read John 14:1-6 aloud, preferably from the KJV.

But, if you have more time, I would encourage you to start reading Genesis in chapter 12.  Notice how much of Genesis is troubling to our finite minds. Be puzzled by how absolutely incredible the events of Genesis are. Consider:

  • Why did God call Abraham in the first place?  It certainly wasn’t because he was from a great family background.  Notice in Joshua 24 that they were idol worshippers.
  • Why did God use a man who denied at points that he was married to his wife, or caved into her demands to sleep with her Hagar?
  • Why was Jacob blessed even after he tricked his dying father,
  • Or, why couldn’t Rebecca have spent a few more days with her family before going to be Isaac’s bride?

Speaking of Egypt, why are there those famines in Genesis in which God’s people have to go down there?  If you read far enough to get to Judah and Tamar, you might ask yourself why we needed to know those sordid details.  Though, we certainly do need to know them!

Read Genesis for yourself and see if you don’t agree.  One thing that stands out from the story of Genesis is that people in the midst of it could never have known how it was all going to fit together.  Neither can we today figure out why God put it together in the way He did.  His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways, our ways (Isaiah 55:8 ff).

Yet, if we read Genesis from this side of the Cross, there certainly is something we do understand.  God had a plan that through the descendants of Abraham would come the Lord Jesus Christ, and from Him, salvation for all who would believe in Him.

From our human point of view, there is simply no understanding how the circumstances of life fit together, yet we can be sure that fit together they will.  As surely as Sarah gave birth to the son of promise, we can be sure that God works all things together for those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

Let not your hearts be troubled. . . (John 14:1-6).

Earthquake pictures from New Zealand

Published on February 23, 2011 in Photography and suffering. 0 Comments

See more at The Big Picture and pray for New Zealand.

Pastor Matt Chandler shares what God has taught him through the trial of a brain tumor

Published on December 4, 2010 in suffering. 0 Comments

If you don’t have cancer, you may have it soon.  It is worth your time to read from Matt Chandler what God has been teaching him.

This Saturday, Dec. 4 marks the one-year anniversary of the 7-8 hour craniotomy that removed a malignant cancerous tumor from my brain and started a year of radiation, chemo and recovery. To say that we’ve been doing some reflecting as a family would be an understatement. So on the one-year anniversary here are a few random thoughts I’ve had:

He really is enough.

For years I have taught that simple sentence to people, and I believed with everything in me that it was true. Seeing it personally has been another story, like the difference between seeing a picture of the Grand Canyon and actually seeing it. I found out on Nov. 26 that I had a mass on my frontal lobe, on Tuesday Dec. 1 that I was going to need surgery soon and that the scans “didn’t look good,” and on Dec. 4 had a good portion of my right frontal lobe removed. I’ll be honest, that season was terrifying, and we wept.

The rest here.

HT: Z

The trouble with miracle cures

Published on November 4, 2010 in suffering. 1 Comment

If you know someone with cancer, read this post from pastor David Wayne who is battling cancer.

I’ve tried to cut down on the cancer posts a bit.  Cancer tends to dominate your life once you have it and one way of not letting it not dominate your life is to talk about other things so I’ve been back on some of the other stuff lately.  But I came across a post from David Darlington over at In The Agora today that I needed to share.

David is also dealing with cancer and, like most everyone with cancer I suppose, is also dealing with a steady stream of friends offering miracle cures.  It would have taken me thousands of words to say what he said here succinctly.  He has given me permission to reprint this post so please read this and carefully consider his words if you know someone who has cancer or some other serious illness.

Greetings! I hope this letter finds you well. I’m dropping you a quick note today to express my appreciation for all you’ve done for me during my cancer trial this past year. Your love and support means more than I can express in words, and your actions have lifted me up in my time of need.

But if I may be so bold, there is has been one area where your assistance has been more of a distraction than an aid. I am speaking of your passing along of miracle cures and alternative therapies you’ve heard about or read on the internet. . .

The rest here.

Justin Taylor interviews Matt Chandler one year later

Published on November 3, 2010 in suffering. 0 Comments

Justin Taylor:

Last November—November 26, 2009, the morning of Thanksgiving to be exact—Matt Chandler’s life changed forever.

Here’s how the Associated Press profile described it:

Thanksgiving morning, a normal morning at the Chandler home.

The coffee brews itself. Matt wakes up, pours himself a cup, black and strong like always, and sits on the couch. He feeds 6-month-old Norah from a bottle. Burps her. Puts her in her bouncy seat.

The next thing Chandler knows, he is lying in a hospital bed.

What Chandler does not remember is that he suffered a seizure and collapsed in front of the fireplace, rattling the pokers. He does not remember biting through his tongue.

He does not remember his wife, Lauren, shielding the kids as he shook on the floor. Or, later, ripping the IV out of his arm and punching a medic in the face.

During the ambulance ride, Lauren, 29, looks back from the passenger seat at her husband in restraints.

He is looking at her but through her.

The doctors discovered a mass on the frontal lobe of his brain and planned for surgery.

A week later, a few days prior to his surgery (December 4), Matt recorded this message:

The rest here.

You might have cancer – - read this

Published on October 20, 2010 in suffering. 2 Comments

Even if you haven’t been diagnosed, there’s a chance – - a reasonably strong possibility – - that you have cancer or will one day be diagnosed with it.

This post is prompted because I am preparing to make a pastoral call to a friend recently diagnosed with a brain tumor.  And, I am taking with me a copy of the below written by John Piper, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer,” with comments from Dave Powlison.

The time to spiritually prepare for your cancer is now.

Notice the first line and when Piper wrote this material.

I write this on the eve of prostate surgery. I believe in God’s power to heal—by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God’s plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain. . .

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. . .

The whole thing here.

An interview with quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada

Published on October 12, 2010 in suffering. 0 Comments

Sarah Pulliam Bailey of Christianity Today interviews Joni Eareckson Tada:

Joni Eareckson Tada might be mistaken for a modern-day Job. The disabilities advocate was severely paralyzed in a diving accident at age 17. For the past ten years, she has endured chronic pain. Now, at age 60, she confronts breast cancer. Sounding upbeat and confident after surgery, she spoke with Christianity Today about her latest book, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty (David C. Cook), where she outlines her theology of suffering.

How has your perspective on suffering and healing changed since your breast cancer diagnosis?

Thankfully, it hasn’t changed at all. You examine Scripture again and follow every passage regarding healing. I did that with my quadriplegia, and I did that again 10 years ago, when I embarked on a whole new life of chronic pain. Just a month ago, getting diagnosed with breast cancer, I looked at those same Scriptures, and God’s words do not change.

Even though it seems like a lot is being piled on, I keep thinking about 1 Peter 2:21: "To these hardships you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps." Those steps most often lead Christians not to miraculous, divine interventions but directly into the fellowship of suffering. In a way, I’ve been drawn closer to the Savior, even with this breast cancer. There are things about his character that I wasn’t seeing a year ago or even six months ago. That tells me that I’m still growing and being transformed. First Peter 2:21 is a good rule of thumb for any Christian struggling to understand God’s purposes in hardship.

Can you elaborate on new ways you think about God’s character?

In John 14, Jesus says, "Anyone who has faith in me will do … even greater things than these." We tend to think Jesus was talking about miracles, as if Jesus were saying, "Hey guys, look at these miracles! One day, you’ll do many more miracles than me!"

The thing that Jesus was doing wasn’t necessarily the miracles. He was giving the gospel; he was advancing his kingdom; he was reclaiming the earth as rightfully his. When Jesus gave that promise, he was saying, "I’m giving you a job to do, my Father and I want the gospel to go forth, and I promise you’ll have everything you need to get that job done, and you’ll do an even better job than me." Jesus ministered for three years, and at the end, he had a handful of disciples who half-believed in him. After Jesus went to heaven and the Holy Spirit came down—my goodness, Peter preaches one sermon and thousands believe. That’s the greater thing that God wants us to do.

That’s what I have been seeing this past month. Every x-ray technician, every nurse, every doctor’s secretary, every clinician, every person I meet in nuclear medicine and at the MRI—it’s amazing how many opportunities I’ve been given to see people hungry and thirsty for Christ. I knew that was true before, but there seems to be something special that is accompanying this diagnosis.

The rest here.