My Father's Comfort

Church camp was profoundly moving. I wondered, before I left, what I would do during the long afternoon breaks between the morning sessions and the evening sessions. But in the end, I needed those quiet solitary afternoons to just sit and think and journal.

The camp speaker was Dr Rod Wilson, a psychologist who is now the President of Regent College in Vancouver. He and his wife Bev are raising their adopted daughter, Jessica, who is a high-functioning autistic with frontal lobe damage. At camp, Rod shared the pain of raising their daughter, a struggle that continues till today; as Rod put it, "it's been 25 years of pain". The stories Rod shared were moving and I am awed by this couple who knowingly adopted a special needs child, after years of childlessness, in obedience to God. Their faith and their acceptance of their pain - seeing God IN their pain - challenged me in a deep way.

In his pain, Rod has asked hard questions - "put God in the dock". And he encouraged us to ask those hard questions ourselves. He said at one point, "People ask me - can Jessica be healed? And I answered, Bev and I - WE have been healed." And it struck home for me that that was true for me too. 

I too have my "Jessica story". A pain that will not go away, will not get better, a person I will need to carry for a long time. But through that pain, I have been comforted and I have been encouraged. I have grown and seen more than I would have if life had been all I had imagined. I have thought deeper, felt deeper. And through my tears God has stripped away my conceit, my shallowness; showed me my insecurities; taught me to have honest conversations; ask hard questions. Taught me that a life worthy of Christ is one that hungers for depth and authenticity. Is there pain? Yes. But when I hurt, when I fall, my Father kneels down and puts His arm around me and comforts me. The pain does not go away, the wound is still there. 

You may see my wound; but I feel my Father's comfort.