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By Craig Lawrence
Suffering can be brutal, crushing.
Whatever is causing the suffering, how do you get through it? How do you stay short of total despair? There is a reliable way.
I understand debilitating suffering. I have been hospitalized three times in rapid succession, each time not knowing if I would survive.
During each painful ordeal God responded to me with a sense of his presence that deeply changed how I endured it.
God wants you to know that he’s there with you. You do not need to suffer alone.
Please allow me to explain how you can bring God in.
It was 2 am, a time when the hospital is quiet and the night is long.
I was slumped over the sink in my room. I was reacting to the multiple drugs I was being given to rescue me from Babesiosis, a rare disease that kills red blood cells and is often fatal.
The vomiting was severe, continuous, and I was in agony.
I had prayed to God for help, but so far there was no answer. I cried once more, “Why won’t you answer my prayer for help? I am your child.”
God answered me. Not audibly, of course, but from deep within me. “My child, I never promised you wouldn’t suffer. I promised you wouldn’t suffer alone.”
I said, “Then come and suffer with me.”
I can’t explain it. I felt a warmness on my left shoulder, as if someone were standing beside me, and through the rest of that painful night I found inexpressible feelings of assurance and love and endurance.
If you are suffering, you need not suffer alone. The greatest healer that has ever lived—Jesus Christ—is waiting to comfort you, to stand beside you as he did me, to comfort you in the long, dark night.
Receive his comfort, you who suffer. There is a bridge over these troubled waters. It has been built by Jesus. Jesus assured us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”1
My bloodstream had gone septic. My organs were shutting down. Death was inevitable if something didn’t change—and fast.
Again, I fervently prayed.
I was awakened about 3 a.m. with this single thought echoing inside me: Matthew 26.
Matthew is part of the Bible, one of four biographies on the life of Jesus.
The next morning I eagerly looked up Matthew chapter 26, to see what was there.
Matthew, a disciple of Jesus, is describing the night before Jesus is arrested and crucified. The disciples and Jesus were together.
Numerous times, Jesus publicly stated that he would be crucified, then rise from the dead three days later. He knew his arrest was imminent.
Jesus knew he was about to be beaten, whipped, and then laid down on a cross of wood, his wrists and feet nailed into the wood and he would hang there until death.
This preceding night Jesus confided to his disciples who were with him, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.”2
Imagine, this is the man-God we are told created the universe. He is overwhelmed with anxiety and fear. And in those moments of suffering, what did he want most?
He wanted the companionship and encouragement of his disciples. He wanted them to sit with him through the night, to be with him.
This Jesus who promises he will not let you suffer alone knows our human need for encouragement, to just “be there” when the pain is greatest. Jesus offers to be this friend to us.
He promises us, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”3
We are told that he is the “God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction.”4
There is a song written by Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water. It won several Grammy Awards, but many people don’t know that Paul Simon said that he wrote this as a hymn.5
He had never written gospel music, but he had been listening to one particular gospel song over and over, called Mary Don’t You Weep. Each night after work he would play it.6 And it was one particular line in that song that prompted Bridge Over Troubled Water.
That line was, “I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in My name.”
And as a hymn, Paul Simon wrote these lyrics:
“When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you.
I’ll take your part, oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.”7
In an interview, Paul Simon explained the peculiar way Bridge Over Troubled Water came together. He said he usually takes a long time to write lyrics. However, for this song, he said:
“I have no idea where it came from. It just came all of a sudden. One minute it wasn’t there and the next minute the whole line was there. It was one of the most shocking moments in my songwriting career. At the time I remember thinking, ‘This is considerably better than I usually write.’ But that’s how fast it came.”8
I’m sharing this, because as I laid in the hospital bed, these song lyrics in Bridge Over Troubled Water describe my encounter with God.
This is what I experienced from Jesus in my hours of suffering.
“When you're weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all, all
I'm on your side, oh, when times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.”9
Jesus is that friend, that hope and power for all who suffer. Let him encourage you and be there with you.
If you want to listen to it, here is an audio of their song:
As I lay in my hospital bed, now facing my own cancer and the surgery that was coming, I recalled a recent conversation I had with a friend, Linda.
She has been fighting cancer for over three years. It’s just one heart-crushing pet scan after another, one more night in pain. One more clinical trial that doesn’t work.
Recently I had asked her how, in the midst of her deep suffering, how can she find hope and peace to carry her through?
She said, “I don’t have the strength to find it.” And neither did I.
So I asked God, “How can Linda and I, how can we muster the strength to find hope while enduring this?”
The answer I heard in my inner being surprised me.
“YOU CAN’T. You cannot muster up enough determination or grit to give you the strength to hope. Not on your own.”
I continued talking to God. “Well God, what then am I supposed to do? I’m trapped in my own despair and drained by drugs and shattered hopes. What must I do?”
God responded, “Cross the bridge to hope. I am the bridge over your troubled waters. Call out to Me and trust me as your Savior and you will find unexplainable, inexpressible hope and joy no matter what lies ahead. I will be with you.”
I’ve known Jesus for many years in my life. I knew this to be true of him. In the Bible encourages us, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”10
Many people forego help from God because they don’t know how to pray or have never started a personal relationship with God. They have no idea how to receive this kind of help from God.
God’s peace is available, but we must ask.
God is waiting for you to pray. He is standing at the door of your life and knocking. He will not come in unless we open the door—but if we do, he will fully accept us, forgive us, and we become his child.
Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him…”11
The specific words you use to talk to God doesn’t matter. However, you could say:
“God, I’m opening the door. I need your help. I’ve never been so in need of help, so secretly afraid of what I’m facing. You are the Creator. I want you to be my God and to know you. Come into my life right now as you promised you would. Thank you for giving me this relationship with you. Help me to grow to know you more.”
Jesus said, “whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”12 If you opened your heart to him just now, he views this as a permanent relationship between you and him. The Bible tells us, “…all who received him [Jesus] who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”13
We grow to know God better by letting God speak to us in the Bible. There, he tells us what’s true about him, what we can count on him for, and how he wants to guide us in our lives and take care of us.
If you asked Jesus into your life, this is just the start of your relationship with him.
Just like any other relationship, your relationship with God and your trust in him will grow as you get to know him better. To do that, I’d encourage you to click on the link below, “I just asked Jesus into my life (some helpful information follows)…”
| ► | I just asked Jesus into my life (some helpful information follows)... |
| ► | I may want to ask Jesus into my life, please explain this more fully... |
| ► | I have a question or comment... |
Footnotes: (1) John 14:27 (2) Matthew 26:38 (3) Hebrews 13:5 (4) 2Corinthians 1:3 (5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uZgcz_WlAA (6) https://youtu.be/8uZgcz_WlAA?si=o3Wlk766q6fSkWz_ (7) https://lyrics.lyricfind.com/lyrics/simon-garfunkel-bridge-over-troubled-water (8) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uZgcz_WlAA (9) https://lyrics.lyricfind.com/lyrics/simon-garfunkel-bridge-over-troubled-water (10) James 4:8 (11) Revelation 3:20 (12) John 6:37 (13) John 1:12
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