Even the Sparrow
Where is God when we are hurting?
I have sat down to write this post many times. I have turned it over and over in my head, seeking words, struggling to find clarity. So much of what I once believed has shifted. The fear and insecurity I once felt about God and my place in His family has melted away over the years until, in recent months, solidifying into a dogged conviction that He is good and only good, that He has always been good, and that Jesus showed us exactly what the goodness of God looks like in the flesh when He walked among us.
I have also, for the most part, avoided consuming news for the sake of my own mental health. Occassionally, though, I log in or flip on a news channel. I rarely make it more than a few minutes before I turn away or close my browser. But I have seen enough, felt enough to ask the question that often hangs unanswered because asking it makes us look like we…gasp…lack faith.
Where is God?
Cancer, human trafficking, addiction, children and families washed away in the Guadalupe River, a young man shot and killed while driving to work, child pornography, the incredible, unspeakable suffering in Gaza.
Where is God? Parents beg for the lives of their children, but they die. A wife pleads for the life of her sick husband, yet the cancer persists. Children weep at the grave of a young parent. Babies starve to death in the arms of their mothers or, worse, are discarded on top of a heap of bodies to suffer their final hours alone. Toddlers are forced to endure heinous acts of abuse to satisfy the profane lust of other human beings.
Where is God?
Hank.
In June, I went out back to feed the animals. It was a cloudy day, with rain promised in a few hours. At the sound of the feed bucket everyone came running.
Everyone except Hank.
Hank is the ringleader, eater of everyone else’s food and lover of a good chin scratch. Hank will look you in the eyes and hold your gaze. He also forgets he doesn’t have horns and head-butts the other goats with joyful abandon.
But that day he didn’t come. I shook the cup, rattling the feed. No Hank. Something was wrong.
Then, I saw him. He was standing behind a large stand of rock near the chicken coop. He was too still. His eyes were glazed. I went to him and looked him over, trying to figure out what was wrong. It only took a minute to diagnose the problem and a sense of doom fell over me. Urinary calculi. Common in wethers (goats who have been castrated) and often deadly. I called my husband, then the vet who came out several hours later.
Hank was in so much pain. the pressure in his bladder continued to build with no way to release it. The vet ran a catheter but could not get the stone to move. It was a big one, he said.
Not good.
We had one shot at saving Hank: big doses of ammonium chloride to hopefully cause the stone to dissolve. We would give him a couple of days to see if it passed.
The next day he seemed a little more himself. Still not urinating but maybe there was hope. But then, by evening, he stopped eating.
The next morning, I went out to check on him and there my sweet Hank stood, shaking in pain. My heart broke in two. I couldn’t let this go on any longer. Even with pain medication, he was suffering. I called the vet and he promised to work us in to his busy schedule as soon as possible.
The hours crawled by. I did everything I could to comfort Hank. Petting, speaking softy, snuggling my cheek against his, but he only looked at me with pain-stricken eyes as if to beg me to make it stop. I went back and forth from the paddock to the house, praying for a miracle. I hated leaving him out there alone for even a few minutes, but then I noticed something beautiful.
Hank was not alone.
Every animal…every goat, chicken, cat, and dog on our farm…was standing near him. Watching. Waiting. They were silent witnesses to his suffering. He didn’t cry or writhe, he just stood there in the middle of his fellow creatures. It was an odd peace, a strange quiet.
Hank was not alone.
At last the veterinarian arrived and humanely put Hank down. I held his head in my lap as he breathed his last breath and thanked God it was over. I watched as the vet took Hank’s body away in his trailer and then allowed the tears to fall.
This animal’s suffering and death opened up something in me that I have been avoiding by not watching the news. He had care and community around him, medical intervention to lesson the pain. But my imagination spiraled.
Hard Questions.
What was the purpose of Hank’s suffering? Why did he have to go through that? And, worse, how many animals suffer and die alone in the wild? How many innocent people lie injured for days until they finally pass without so much as a gentle hand on their arm? How many children starve to death or die from injuries forced upon them by abusers with no one singing over them or reminding them that Jesus loves them?
It was like Hank’s death opened a door that could not be shut. I couldn’t sleep for the vivid scenes playing out in my mind. My prayers felt small, weak, not enough to create even a drop of relief in this trauma laden world.
My God, there is so. much. trauma.
But Hank’s suffering allowed me to witness something good and true, something that I believe is true in all the world. Hank was not alone. Just as the animals stood watch and waited with him, I believe Jesus does the same.
But better.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take up the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will take hold of me.
Psalm 139: 7-10 (NASB 2020)
God does more than care.
When I was a child, around six or seven years old, I found a baby sparrow that had fallen from the tree just outside our back door. Scrawny and naked, it looked pitiful and I, in my childish belief in the impossible, decided I would save it.
But it died.
The death of that tiny bird wrecked me, and I remember sitting next to my mother the next weekend at church when we sang a hymn. I don’t remember anything but this one line:
“Even the sparrow that flies through the air, surely is noted and numbered up there.”1
I remember weeping, wondering if that was true. Did God see that little bird? Did He care about it? Did He care about me?
Did God care about Hank? Does God care about the young mother with cancer? The toddler fighting a brain tumor? The newborn suffering cocaine withdrawals? Does God care about addicts and trafficking victims? Child slaves and sweatshop workers?
Where is God in suffering?
What I believe about these questions is incredibly important. I once believed God was angry, standing with arms crossed and a scowl on His bearded face as I screwed up yet again. I was eventually told He is love, but love in His case looked awfully scary and mean. It looked like punishment. Discipline with a rod of iron “for my own good.” It felt more like He tolerated mankind, but was looking for one good reason to flick us straight into the fires of hell.
But now I realize a god like that is a monster and not worthy of worship. He is no better than Molech who demanded the sacrifice of children to appease his anger. Any earthly father would be imprisoned for treating his children that way.
No, God is not like that at all. God is not “up there,” “out there,” or somewhere over the rainbow. He is here. Right here. With us.2
God is Love. Jesus called him Abba, which means Daddy. And our Abba is a good father who loves His kids. All of them.
So, why so much suffering?
Creation is in labor, and labor hurts. It comes in waves of blinding pain, but produces life. Innocence. Family.
I love how The Message paraphrases the following section of Romans 8:
(MSG) That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.
Romans 8:18-26(MSG)
I feel the birth pangs, don’t you? In the pain and suffering of this world awaiting the New Creation we look long at the far horizon, moving ever nearer to the day when all that has been lost is restored. We wait together, watchful and present as we fight to remember we are not alone. Jesus is with us. He is with us in even the darkest places, the deepest grief, the most unimaginable suffering. He went all the way to the bottom and brought us out with Him.3
We are never alone. Not a single creature exists apart from the person of Jesus Christ.
In Him all things hold together.4
Read the Psalm again:
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take up the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will take hold of me.
Psalm 139: 7-10 (NASB 2020)
Even there. Even here. Even when. Even if. He is there. Here. With us.
Even the sparrow who flies through the air surely is noted and numbered up there.
Hallelujah.
I have searched and have not found the title of this hymn. If you know it please share it with me!
Matthew 1:23 See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”
1 Peter 3:18-22 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
Ephesians 4:8-10 Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? (He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
Colossians 1:15-20 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. (emphasis mine)
Beautifully written thoughs on a difficult subject. We all needed to hear this. I especially love what your animals did for Hank.
Your words are so thought provoking. When we are at our lowest, our God is there. All we have to do is lean on Him. Love ❤️ you so much. I am so proud of the strong woman you are.