Fellowship and Suffering

My daughter loves music. There is a very specific playlist I played the whole time I was pregnant, and now when we’re having a rough day I can play that and it usually calms her down. One of her brothers gave her his echo dot so I wouldn’t have to leave my phone in her room if she fell asleep for a nap. (Don’t worry, I leave it on DND unless we’re using it and I’m awake – true or not, the creeper stories did their job…) Anyway, I’m still trying to figure out how to link it to her playlist, but I found a station that works great for naps and has opened up a whole world of new music.

One being this song, Man of Sorrows by Brett Bell. I heard it a few times, but then one day I sat in the chair, rocking my baby, worshipping with tears streaming down my face.

I want to see a new side of you that I couldn’t have seen before my pain.

Can you tell me the story of each scar and how you overcame?

I want to know of the mercy and the tenderness that carried you.

I want to know of the joy that led you up that hill to see it through.

Have you ever sat down to think about the fellowship you can have with Jesus because of your suffering? The understanding that you both have of what it means to lose something, to grieve something, to walk through pain and fear? That suffering opens up a door for you to know Jesus in a whole new way.

We’re so quick to ask God to move us through the tough spaces, sometimes that’s all we’re focused on. Even in the times we know that God can use it for good or we’re trusting that he’s refining something in us, we rarely stop and think of our suffering in terms of Jesus – at least I don’t. When I’m suffering, I’m usually thinking about me. But there is a reason Jesus can feel so close in the suffering – because he intimately knows that space. He knows deeply what you’re feeling, and his heart breaks with yours.

The Bible says that Jesus is at the right hand of God, interceding on our behalf. I can close my eyes and picture him kneeling before the throne: “Father, please, I know her pain.” I can picture him urging the Holy Spirit: “Comfort her, wrap your presence all around her. She’s suffering, I know how that feels. I know she has a little further to go, so fill her spirit with joy and mercy. She’s strong, she knows that together we will overcome – but today, she needs you more.”

My heart breaks over the wasted moments I could have had with Jesus in my suffering.

This song is such a beautiful picture of our communion with Christ, of what it means to be an overcomer, to relish in the mercy and tenderness of God despite our circumstances, and to walk through suffering with the joy described in the Bible.

I pray that when the next season of suffering approaches, or maybe you’re still sitting smack in the middle of one now, you will stop and cherish this fellowship with Christ you couldn’t understand without it.  That in all the darkness, you will seek to deepen your bond with your Savior and learn to count it all joy.