A friend recently asked me how I am experiencing daily life after Nathan’s death.

The first thing that came to mind, is my awareness of how fragile the human soul is.  How trauma and suffering affect people. I thought about how slowly I drive and how many times people honk at me now when I am on the road, and it scares me.  I thought about how I loose track of time, staring off into space, with no awareness of my doing that. How my voice is different, my eyes look different.  How I loose my patience with things that would not normally bug me. How I feel weird, lonely and kind of lost. I don’t feel like me.

I also shared how I recognize that same thing in others now, like never before.  I am aware of the look in their eyes, because it is the same look in mine. I don’t assume I know why a person is acting a certain way or driving wrong, I now think that maybe something terrible has happened, and they can’t help how they are feeling or acting.   Maybe there has been a history of pain and trauma that has caused them to check out.  My heart bleeds and hurts for them.  I am drawn to people with that familiar look, with that loneliness. I see it a lot at Bridge of Hope.  I find comfort, even if we don’t speak the same language, in going to the one who is suffering, looking into their eyes, and embracing them.

I knew of God’s response of delight and of his response of displeasure, but strangely His suffering, I never saw before. God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers.  The pain and fallenness of humanity have entered into His heart. Through my tears, I have seen a suffering God.

What does this mean for life, that God suffers? I am only beginning to learn. When we think of God the Creator, then we naturally see the rich and powerful of the earth as his closest image. But when we hold steady before us the sight of God the Redeemer redeeming from sin and suffering by suffering, then perhaps we must look elsewhere for earth’s closest icon, Where? perhaps to the face of that woman with soup tin in hand and bloated child at side. Perhaps that is why Jesus said that inasmuch as we show love to such a one, we show love to Him.~ Nicholas Wolterstorff

He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God and afflicted. Isaiah 53: 3-4