Fiercely Good, images of God

There is a CS Lewis quote in a Grief Observed that says something along the lines of : anyone who does not understand how a good God can allow pain has not been to the dentist lately.

For the past week plus I’ve been treating a little boy who burned his arm when he fell into boiling porridge on an open fire, an all-too-common problem where cooking is done outside on the ground.  The partial-thickness burns extended over his elbow and down to his wrist.  At first I encouraged the parents and staff to be doing “physical therapy”, moving his arm about.  But after a few days I realized that I always found him with it bent at 90 degrees, and no one was forcing him to move it.  If he continued in this immobility he would heal with contractures that prevented him from feeding himself, writing, lifting, riding a bike, hoeing a garden, hugging his own child, so many things.  So each day I began to straighten and flex his arm.  The wound bled, he screamed, in fact he began to cry as soon as I walked onto the ward most days and did not stop the entire time I was present.  I did try to mitigate the misery with pain medications and candy.  Pink new skin began to grow, the crusty exudate of blood and scab fell off, and today he barely whimpered, more eager for his payment of candy than worried about the brief moment of pain.

This boy has been a clear picture to me of life: God is stretching my arm even though it makes me bleed, because he wants to heal me, and give me the ability to live in fullness and joy.  I see Him coming and scream and resist, because I don’t realize the extent of my danger, or see ahead to the goodness of His intended outcome.  Faith occurs in the moment of bleeding, before the hindsight of new skin growing.  

The second image of the week comes from the movie Blood Diamond, which I saw for the first time last night.  This is an intensely powerful movie.  Violent and disturbing, so I hesitate to recommend it, but redemption is the main measure of a story for me and this movie exceeded expectations.  The image of God comes late in the movie as a Sierra Leonean man faces his young son who has been abducted into a rebel army, brainwashed, and turned into a child soldier.  The son is pointing a gun at the father and saying hateful words, trembling, about to kill him.  But the father looks at him and says “I know you have done some terrible things, but this is not who you are:  you are a boy who loves soccer and school, you are a good boy, you are my son and I love you and I will always be your father.”  There was the Gospel, our Father in heaven looking at us in our rebellion and hate and self-importance, yet looking through those things to say He loves us anyway and has come to rescue us out of that life and bring us back into communion with Himself.  Watch it.

God the strong father, confronting our evil and pulling us out, even at the cost of blood spilled.  His own.