Byproduct of Suffering

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame. Romans 5:3-5

When was the last time you stared death in the face?
When was the last time you left someone for 20mins and came back only to find that person cold and grey?
When was the last you bathed and prepared a body for the grief-stricken family to visit?

People wonder why I don't like movies with excessive violence and killing in them- this is why:
Until you have stared death in the face, until you have walked into a room expecting to 'care' for a person, until you have cried with a family over a loss (and its always unexpected), or tried to explain the dying process, or sat with a person as they take their last rattly gasp of air, you have no concept of the reality of death, of what it takes, of what it means. Its traumatizing and its final. There is no going back. And there are always te people who suffer- its just that in movies, one doesn't see the family of the bad guy who agonizes over their loss.

But I digress. I am not here to talk about death... rather about my ponderings after the recent death of one of my patients; maybe someday I'll tell you that story...

I have been struck with the transiency of life, like a vapor, it appears for a little while then vanishes; and the unexpectedness of death- how is it possible to leave a room for 20 mins and come back to find death has visited? I don't want to get caught up in the morbid, but I do want to contemplate the shortness of life and the finality of death and decide how I will let it affect me. I don't want it to make me callous and hard, I don't want it to become my reality- yes people do die, as a nurse I see that quite regularly, but I want the value of a life and the ugliness of death to be forefront in my mind, not the coldness of 'tomorrow we die'. Death wasn't in God original plan and I don't want death to cloud my view of life. Every life has value and I want my life to be one that recognizes this value and celebrates it, and honours it, and respects it.

There are 3 character traits that I need to work on in my dealings with people in order to cherish this opportunity of life that God has given us: gentleness, compassion and self- control.

gentleness is the outward expression of love. This is my words and my actions, my facial expressions and body language; this includes making time for others and my responses to them.

compassion is the heartfelt emotion of love. This is choosing to do these things above with my whole heart and not holding back that little piece that says 'I'm only doing this because I have to'. What if Christ had said that when He was dying?

self- control is the willful exercise of love. This is what it takes to keep going, to keep choosing to have a heart of compassion and to express gentleness, to keep choosing to 'die to self'.

I say I want to be a missionary, I intend in less than a year's time to go to Zambia to serve the people there. Amy Carmichael said 'missionary life is simply a chance to die'

By this shall all men know that you are my disciples because you love one another. John 13:35