I’ve recently discovered that a large chunk of the weight of suffering I’ve carried for four+ years is due to my own desire to understand and have my questions about Maggie’s illness answered to my satisfaction. If she can’t be healed, Lord, at least help me understand it. To see some overarching purpose of redemption and good. I may never cease all my questioning, it is what motivates me in life, but I know now it can be redirected in a manner that brings more glory to God. Read on to see how I found peace in this area.

I’m moving old files to the attic for storage, a job long overdue. I pause on the steps holding a bright red expanding folder, burdened and bulging with 4-1/2 years-worth of the best medical science could do to understand, if not cure, Maggie. Reports. Details. Findings. Progress and set-backs. From scans, lab work, biopsies, procedures, and three clinical trials. I’ve kept them beneath my desk for quick reference. But in the cease-fire between medicine and one patient’s cancer, I wonder if my own relentless struggle to comprehend can finally rest. To put it another way, should I pack away my desire to argue a case before God?

The Case for Suffering

I’ve practiced the oral arguments off and on for the years between diagnosis and death. A seasoned prosecutor stating a case file now memorized. Listing each scar, diseased organ, moment of nausea, hour of loneliness, day of pain, and year of crushed dreams. Exhibits A-Z. And as I talk, all eyes in the courtroom see the evidence stacked on one side of the scales, balance lost under the load. How much does suffering weigh?

The Scales of Justice

The Apostle Paul had his own day in court. 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 reads like a tight courtroom drama. I see him pacing the floor, offering one example after another. And I cheer him on, seeing my own case mirrored in his words. Afflicted. Troubled when pressed by circumstances never on a radar and not of our choosing. Perplexed. Oh, yes. Questions, how they dog my days. Sending me to the very end of my wits to extract meaning from pain. Persecuted. Not so much from an outside enemy as from the traitor thoughts within. Cast down. Yes, the gut punches that sent me to the ropes when I read words like “innumerable” in those scan reports. Go on, Paul, preach! You know, too, the weight of suffering.

The Counterbalance to Suffering

And he does go on with a curious thing happening to those out-of-balance scales. Afflicted, yes, but not crushed. Perplexed, most certainly, but not despairing. Persecuted, often, but never forsaken. And, finally, struck down, regularly, but notdestroyed. A correction for every trouble. Mercy for each day. God’s counterweight is as much about what we’re spared as it is compensation or gain. And with each lovingkindness, as the Old Testament calls it, the scales ease and realign.

Unlike my own selfish arguments, Paul has been speaking for the defense. And when I pull out the individual exhibits of God’s mercy, I make a connection. Crushed. Despairing. Forsaken. Struck down. Echoes of a suffering servant framed in Isaiah 53:4-5:

Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
(NASB)

My troubles, Maggie’s suffering, are but a draft to tease the scales in comparison to His sacrifice. And His sacrifices bring one enormous counterweight to my desire for justice. Paul points it out in 2 Corinthians 4:17. Now I can read it without being offended when he calls my affliction “momentary and light.” Glory. Only this time it’s measured by eternity, not a temporary journey through a sin-stained world.

Infinity is double-sided, represented on paper by two joined loops, an “8” on its side.  At an imperceptibly small point in the middle sits a trifling dot of overlapping ink we call time. Eternity endlessly circles in each direction bearing an everlasting weight of glory held in perfect balance. How much does suffering weigh? Just enough. Never enough to budge the scales against His infinite glory. But enough to redirect my sight from justice to mercy. Enough to remind me this world is not my home nor should it seem so. Enough to train me for grasping the incomparable weight of glory I’m longing to hold. Enough to comfort the pains of a moment.

the case for suffering

I continue my climb up the stairs to place the files in the attic. I’m now content knowing I can place the medical answers and the spiritual questions where they belong. Way above my head. And leaving them, those temporary reflections of affliction, I feel an overwhelming peace and lightness. The lessening of a burden. How much does suffering weigh? Enough to lay it down.

Read more on suffering at Leaf by Leaf in Peace in Suffering

For more biblical perspective on suffering read Five Truths About Christian Suffering