From Daniel on June 25, 2010
Has it been a year? For some of you, ten or twelve of you at least I guess, it has. 12 months since I began to write these almost daily epistles (one could hardly call such long communications e-mails) At first I was writing these because I could not respond to each person individually. The Great Sorrow was so deep. My son’s death and passing was so fresh, too near. Each time a person called, wrote or e-mailed (there were quite literally hundreds) I wanted to respond because each one touched me deeply, but each response forced me to dive back into the depths of self pity, loss and despair. The dreams of catching my Jakey, falling with him, watching him fall and being paralyzed and powerless would begin again. I realized that I could not physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually remain in that realm any longer or I would surely perish. I knew somehow that sympathy, empathy and pity mixed with well-intentioned southern casseroles, anti-depressants and sleeping pills can kill a man out right.
I realized the truth as C.S. Lewis spoke it to me, “That I shall ‘get over this’ like a man with an amputated leg recovers from the surgery which removed one of his legs. If the stump heals properly without infection, there will still be pain, some severe and some will seem to originate in the leg that is no longer there. He may learn to walk on crutches and then perhaps learn to walk with a prothesis or a peg leg, but he will walk on or perish. But each morning for the rest of his life as he pulls on his trousers, he will be aware of his loss. He will understand that he shall always be a monoped.” (from “A Grief Observed”)
I knew that suffering was part of the plan. That my Boss was “a man acquainted with great sorrow.” He knew when He said, “Follow me” that He was calling me into a world of hurt but also a world of bliss, unspeakable pain and inexpressible beauty. I became aware of the fact that I had to surrender my perfectly pierced heart and allow it to be totally broken before it could ever be replaced by a new heart so that He could “renew a right spirit within me.”
So I began to turn to His word every (well, almost every) morning to be immersed and have the dead parts of me hacked away like a badly burned patient in Intensive Care during debridment has the burned epidermis sliced off with scalpels. With these patients, the ones the news would described as “burned beyond recognition,” taking off the dead tissue is the only way for the new tissue to grow and the doctors cannot anesthetize the patient at all or the patient will die because they cannot breathe well enough yet. I witnessed this years ago as an x-ray tech on the evening shift. The muffled screams and almost inhuman wails of the patient during this process are something that no intern, resident, nurse or even janitor will ever forget. The smell of the burned human flesh cannot be compared to any other scent. Any person with the least bit of compassion had to ask as I did thirty-five years ago, “What in God’s name are you doing to that man?” The Head Resident who sat, utterly drained outside the patient’s door, lowered his mask and with tears rolling down his cheeks looked me square in the eyes and simply said, “I’m saving his life, asshole.”
I always had to bend over this man and gently lift him to place a hard metal encased film under his back after his debridment and take a portable chest x-ray of his lungs as they filled with fluid due to his inability to stand the pain of coughing. Each night I would look him in the eyes and beg his forgiveness for the pain that even gently lifting him two inches would cause. I watched over the weeks and months as that patient received skin grafts from loved ones and unknown donors. I saw him go from an almost featureless sort of humanoid looking thing who was unrecognizable to his closest loved ones to a new man with a new face living in a new skin. But looking into his eyes I knew who was. His eyes never changed except to become deeper and, other than the sounds which came from him, his only means of expressing himself. I saw him struggle to take painful step after painful step in rehab until one day, I saw him walk out. Less than five percent of his level of burn patients ever did that.
And now I understand why. Now I’m beginning to see who held that scalpel, who lifted him up, who coaxed him forward and who whispered gently in his ear, “I’m saving your life, asshole.”
Thank you for letting me wail. Thank you for forgiving me when I cursed in my pain. Thank you for being my “skin donors.” Thank you for laughing with me through tears of joy at the sight of a big brother kissing his baby brother or the sound of dove cooing on a branch at dawn. And Boss, please dear Boss, use this to nourish somebody, anybody...for your glory, but not my will, but...
June 25
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow from My Utmost for His Highest
“… what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ‘Father, glorify Your name’ ” (John 12:27–28 ).
As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people."
