The University of Suffering

Dee Dee gave us this article on Sunday at church since it was your 2-year anniversary.

The University of Suffering
by Jay Blevins
For several years I have traveled to bring Bibles and spiritual comfort to "the Suffering Church." I was so deeply impressed with the courage and dedication of the people I met behind closed doors that I desired more and more to identify with them, asked God to help me understand, as Paul wrote in Philippians 3:10, "the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings." (NIV). Little did I know how powerful that prayer was to prove.

I assumed that on one of my border crossings into Eastern Europe or China I would be detained for a while, perhaps interrogated and pushed around for a little bit. But God's ways are strange sometimes. In city after city across the United States, while also serving as a volunteer speaker for Open Doors with Brother Andrew, I encountered people torn by grief and personal tragedy. If I needed contact with suffering, I was certainly finding it.

Just before Thanksgiving 1985, I found out what God was trying to show me. Tired and lonely, I had finished a dinner meeting in Laredo, Texas, when the hotel front desk paged me for a telephone call. It was my pastor from back home in Florida.

"Jay," he said in a quiet voice, "you need to come home. Jeff was hit by a car as he ran after a ball."

Not too concerned, I immediately pictured my 10-year-old lying in a hospital bed, his leg in a cast. He would love the drama of it.

"How is he?" I asked.

There was a long silence on the phone, and then a choked voice explained, "Jeff didn't make it. He's in heaven with the Lord."

I felt as if a sledgehammer had rammed my chest. Numbly, I told him I would arrange a flight home and hung up the phone. But no flights were available, and I would have to wait until morning.

Sitting alone that night in the Holiday Inn, I wondered how this could be happening. Just a couple of hours before, I had called my family and talked with all the children, including Jeff.

And now he was gone, hit by a speeding drunk driver. I cried as I had never cried before. My room felt physically cold. I turned on all the lights, but it still seemed incredibly dark.

A thousand miles from home, I was totally alone, full of despair and feeling forgotten. I kept hearing in my mind the verses I had used in the meeting this evening: "Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ..." (1 Peter 4:12,13, NIV).

I began to realize that God was enrolling me in his university of suffering, like so many of those precious souls I had met overseas. The paper was the pages of a broken heart, the ink was my tears, and the professor would be the Holy Spirit.

As this though shot home to my spirit, I suddenly felt the arms of a loving Savior wrap around me, and I was enveloped by a peace that had never touched me before. While the pain in my heart would not go away, I slept an hour in the peace of the Holy Spirit before it was time to leave for the airport.

I arrived home just after noon to find a house full of people. Suddenly, I recalled a piece of paper my wife, Debbie, and I had discovered. Of all things, Jeff had written a little will a few months ago. We thought it was so cute we decided to save it and give it to him when he was older: "When I die I am 100 percent sure I will go to heaven. I was saved in Indiana in a church called Berean Baptist Church on July 6, 1980. It wasn't that hard to understand except that He loved us all, but I got through it. When I die I want everybody me or my family knows to come to my funeral. Especially my best friends...I will miss all of you."

Jeff had never mentioned this will, but now it was obvious that the Holy Spirit had prompted it. More than 600 people attended the funeral, and several accepted Christ during the service. Since then, nearly 100 more have met the Savior as a direct result of Jeff's death and his written will.

When I had prayed for God to show me the meaning of suffering, I never dreamed it would mean the loss of my own son. Yet I realize I never would have understood suffering without going though such a wrenching experience. When I work now with Christians in restricted countries and meet those who have been imprisoned for their faith, I felt a deep bond that cannot be put into words.

When friends kept their distance after the funeral, not knowing what to say and reluctant to get close, I understood a little of what released Christian prisoners go through when they are shunned by their neighbors. And by our family's being a living testimony to the comforting love of Jesus, I discovered what a Christian witness means in the midst of sorrow.

My son was taken from me without my consent, but God willingly gave His Son to die for our sins. In the university of suffering, the depth of that love is the greatest lesson of all.

Adapted from "News Brief with Brother Andrew," a publication of Open Doors with Brother Andrew

Open Doors with Brother Andrew is a front-line ministry dedicated to helping Christians live under persecution.