On slivers and God's sovereignty

I can only imagine what Heidi must have thought as she watched the gut-wrenching scene:

Her three-year-old cousin screaming in pain, sweat beading on her forehead. Her cousin’s own mommy holding her down, pinned in a firm embrace with tears in her own eyes as well. On the other end her cousin’s own beloved daddy, with one of the girl’s feet firmly pinned under his arm and the other gripped tightly in his hands.  In one hand he held the instrument of pain — a small sharp object resembling scissors, poked and pressed into the tiny foot again and again and again, mercilessly inflicting his precious daughter with pain over and over and over.

Deeper and harder her daddy cut and poked, louder she screamed and wider Heidi’s eyes grew. Her grandma finally led her away to another room, and it wasn’t until after the whole ordeal was done that it dawned on me, as my sister-in-law remarked, “Heidi will never let us hold her now that she saw what we did to her cousin.” Of course. How horrible must this scene have appeared to a 2-year-old?

The reality was that my sweet niece had a 1/2″ long cedar sliver lodged far under the skin of her tender foot. As her sweet mom held her tightly we all poked and prodded and cut with a needle and tweezers to remove the foreign object before it became infected and caused far greater harm. Though it was awful for us all, we adults clearly understood it had to be done and knew the end result would be good.  Even my niece, in the middle of the ordeal, had a tiny bit of understanding as she carefully listened to her mother’s voice and held still, showing tremendous bravery in the midst of pain.

But Heidi had neither the understanding of an onlooking adult nor the in-the-midst-of-it explanation to give her any shadow of comprehension of what was going on. It must have seemed cruelty indeed, but of course it was out of love that my brother and sister-in-law held down their daughter and carefully removed the offending object.

Someday, of course, when we are in eternity and have the understanding of an “adult” we will be able to comprehend the sovereign ways of God and the times when His loving hand appeared calculatingly cruel.  And it does seem that when we are the ones in the midst of the trial, there is a level of grace and understand that God allows. It is very much like we are the 3-year-old girl, held down by a loving parent, hearing His tender voice reassuring, “Don’t be afraid, I love you, we’re almost done, look in my eyes, hold my hand, I promise it will be ok.”  Though the pain is most certainly ours to bear there is a comfort because we’re also the ones being held.

But the infant onlooker has neither the understanding nor the comfort.

The infant onlooker sees nothing but an innocent child in screaming writhing agony and a seemingly cruel and merciless parent.

No wonder the world questions the goodness of God.

In reality I really don’t think Heidi was scared of my brother and sister-in-law  after the ordeal. Why? Because even though she didn’t understand the terrible scene, she knew the character and love of the parents.

The “solution” to dealing with the suffering around us is not necessarily to understand the pain but to understand the Parent.

What the world needs is not to understand God’s ways but to understand God’s worth. That is, to understand God’s love.

What we try to teach our children is to trust us, even when they don’t understand.

Even when our ways seem cruel.

Like His sometimes do.

Heidi is learning this. So are we.

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