Where Is God When It Hurts

Philip Yancey

ISBN: 0-310-35411-0

Read: 1998 September 6 - October late

Reviewed: 1998 November 11

September 6 was the first Sunday of two services at church for the fall season and, during the first sermon, having forgotten to bring my journal, I found myself in the church library. I'd read Yancey before and this little yellow book jumped off the shelf at me. I read the first chapter quickly and was hooked, using the library checkout card as a bookmark, I put it back on the shelf after a couple of chapters and came back next week. Ultimately I brought the book home to finish on a Sunday afternoon and to review.

Yancey starts off well, really addressing the issues of pain and suffering from the viewpoint of the body's system of pain and control. People who don't have this wear themselves out and seriously injure themselves for lack of proper feedback. This is what we call "Leprosy" or Hansen's Disease. He spends some time at a sanitarium for the afflicted in Louisiana and makes an excellent case when he is done for the "goodness" of pain in our existence. Also, he spends much time discussing the work of Dr. Paul Brand who spent millions of dollars unsuccessfully trying to replicate the human pain system with technology. The technology isn't there yet.

Pain is necessary and like so many other unpleasant things (i.e., the chapter "Why Does It Have to Hurt"), actually optimizes our freedom in this creation. Convinced of this, the real question becomes, "What about pain gone wrong, as in disease and serious injury?" "It’s part of the fallen creation," is Yancey's basic answer. He makes the excellent point that the last hundred years or so has been a time of the greatest reductions of pain and suffering ever seen by mankind, thanks in large part to technology, and a time of the greatest amount of concern and complaining about what is left.

He then goes off to interview a couple of people in great pain, Brian Sternberg and Joni Earickson. These have both broken their necks and become quadriplegics. They both depend on God, but in quite different ways. Brian had waited for ten years at the writing of the book to be healed, believing that it was the only possibility for good. Joni has made good on her life and great fame resulting from her tragedy. She looks forward to being whole in heaven. Both are in pain, both are indeed tragic. It was unfortunate, in my view, that both subjects had the same injury, in a universe of greatly diverse suffering. The author contrasts the responses, though and draws conclusions.

The third section is on coping and is weakest and least helpful for me. In essence, he says, "well, this life is very short compared to eternity, you ought to be able to put up with anything." And, "God doesn't do anything about tragedy, the question seems to be, 'now it has happened, how will you respond?'" Even though this may be true, I found it outrageous. And, in comparing our plight to that of Christ, we get the same dose of "Christ had it worst of anybody so he understands all" that is common to poor preaching. Yancey is a young author in this volume. Perhaps he had to finish on a deadline. Perhaps I am all wrong and these platitudes are just what those people in pain told him. In any case, the end was not very helpful.

The book now returns to the church library, having been very helpful to me in places and somewhat useless in others. I feel mild pain myself, physical, mental and spiritual. I am not comfortable. I hurt, and the prospects for the future are frightening: teenagers, calamity, greater job stress, the end of “life as we know it.” I am busy turning to God in my own suffering, small though it is. This book has been somewhat informative, but not very helpful in terms of building that relationship with God.