Attending to God Through His Pain

I (Rich) remember a time while serving as a young pastor at Peace Community Church. At the beginning of my sermon every single Sunday an elderly believer in the church tilted his head to the right and promptly closed his eyes. I was aggravated (righteously of course!) at such disrespect for the Word of God.

The truth is that Louie had listened to the likes of me for more than seven decades. Nevertheless, I was frustrated internally by Louie’s taking a snooze at the heart of our worship time. This troubled me until I made a pastoral call to visit Louie and his wife on their farm. I had every intention of talking to Louie about his lack of respect for the preaching of Scripture. But since our time together would be my first chance of getting to know them, I decided I would begin by listening to their story.

It wasn’t long before I realized the deep and painful realities they faced because of the mental illness of one of their adult sons. I had no idea of what they had gone through for many years. They lived with a capriciously angry adult son who left two elderly people living in real fear.

Suddenly I thought, Would I in my late seventies still be faithfully attending worship if there was this much pain in my soul?I quickly gave up on the idea of confronting Louie about his “disrespect.” And at the end of our visit I offered to read a psalm. Sure enough, the moment I began reading the psalm Louie titled his head to the right and closed his eyes. In that moment I realized this was how Louie quieted his soul and listened. It was his way of attending to God through his pain.