Tough Things...

No one ever told me that this trip, this experience, was going to be easy. No one told me that the path would be lined with roses, no one said that I would come home the same. I was warned. I was told about death, and suffering, and what it means to see those things up close. And it’s not that I didn’t believe them. Trust me, I did. I just had no idea what it meant. I couldn't have imagined what it would feel like to watch children suffer. I couldn’t have comprehended what it meant to see mothers grieve. I couldn’t have understood what it was like to watch people die. In many ways, I was unprepared. Unaware and naive, living in my own world of superficial bliss, unimaginable luxuries and innumerable conveniences. In all my seventeen years of contented life, I had never before been so close and exposed to raw, unfiltered pain, suffering, hurt, sickness, and death as I have been in the last six weeks.
One of the very first patients I saw was a little boy, only seven years old, who will be etched in my mind for eternity. He had tetanus, a disease obtained through sharp, often rusted objects or occasionally, animal bites. In this little boy raged a war. A war between every muscle in his small, young body. Tetanus causes all the muscles to contract at once, thus resulting in a painful game of tug-of-war, as each muscle strains against the other. I can’t even imagine the pain that this innocent boy was experiencing as his ligaments and bones were pulled in every direction. He cried for his Papa through clenched teeth, and tried to call out when we had to move him to prevent bed sores or when he was poked and prodded by nurses trying to get an IV in his constricted veins. He lay rigid on his bed, in a helpless state of unimaginable pain.
His story is just one of many…
This week, a mother brought in her newborn baby. He was beautiful, but needed immediate help. All of his abdominal organs were outside his body. He was born with a defect in his abdominal wall (this condition has a name I can’t remember). While nurses and surgeons did everything they could — wrapping the organs in warm, damp bags suspended above him and putting an IV through his umbilical cord — there simply aren’t the resources here for that kind of scenario. He died on his third day of life. He didn’t even have a name…
A little boy came in because he had a compound bone fracture (where the bone breaks through the skin). The accident that caused it had happened over a year ago, and his dad just brought him in. His arm had grown awkwardly and painfully around the protruding bone, and is now ravaged by infection. He has to have an amputation and will lose his entire arm.
I was sitting in the OPD with Dr. Zoolkoski and Maddie. We were in between patients and were talking lightheartedly among ourselves when they brought in a fifty year old man. He had apparently been sick for three months, and collapsed when he got there that morning. The two men who were with him laid him on the floor for us to examine. He was breathing shallowly, and Maddie attempted to get a blood pressure. Her second try, she got nothing. Dr. Zoolkoski listened for a heart beat. It was too late. He was gone. Right in front of us, right there in our office, he had died. He had been walking around on his own two feet that morning, and before lunch, his body was being wheeled out on a gurney.

These stories aren’t the only ones. In fact, they aren’t even out of the ordinary here at Galmi. There are many more that I could tell you, and thousands from other doctors and staff. An anemic young mother who didn’t get blood in time, a ten-year-old boy who didn’t make it through, a baby who died because the power shut off along with her oxygen. In Niger, suffering is an everyday occurrence, and death is a part of life.
It’s hard to look at this and not think about the could have’s and would have’s, the what if’s and maybe’s. It’s easy to go back to the age-old argument….It’s just not fair. It’s not fair that the little boy with tetanus hadn’t had access to a preventative vaccine. It’s not fair that the baby was born here, where we don’t have to facilities, equipment, or personnel to have saved his life. It’s not fair that the boy who could’ve had nothing more than a cast and a scar will now have to struggle through the rest of his life with only one arm. It’s not fair that the man died before we had a chance to do something, and that we didn’t even have to equipment to try to revive him. It just really doesn’t seem fair. Most of all, it’s not fair that had most of these people been in the States or somewhere else with better, more available healthcare, they would be fine right now, and that we are so spoiled, and take so much for granted in our happy state of first-world opulence and ignorance.
However, Galmi isn’t the only place that there’s suffering, and pain isn’t isolated to Niger. It’s a constant, global problem. Even in our lives of seeming ease, we all face hurts and hardships, in many ways—physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. And how easy is it for all of us to ask the questions and make the accusations that I’m so tempted to right now. Why is this happening? Why them? It isn’t fair. It shouldn’t be like this. And how many of us have looked at such horrendous pain, and wondered, Where is God? Has He abandoned us?

Asaph says in Psalm 77, “…My soul refuses to be comforted…I am so troubled I cannot speak…Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has His steadfast love forever ceased? Are His promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His compassion?” (Psalm 77, English Standard Version)
During a time of grief and hardship and pain, when all he can see are the hard things, Asaph is at such a point of discouragement that he is wondering if God’s love has departed, if His promises no longer stand, if He has forgotten His grace and withdrawn His compassion. 
Have we not all been there? 
Those moments of deep despair when the mountains rise up around us, when the enemies are closing in, when the storm seems to never end. Those days of tears when we are weary, afraid, hopeless, angry, alone. When we are gripped by sickness, when loved ones are taken away, when we have to look in the eyes of an innocent child or grieving mother or helpless father, suffering in ways we will likely never be able to understand. 
But Asaph doesn’t end the Psalm there. He gives us an example, and a Hope!
“…I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most high. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your wonders of old. I will ponder all Your work, and meditate on Your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders…” (verses 10-14)
In times of despair or questioning, l think that we should all look to Asaph’s example. Rather than focusing on his own negative thoughts and sinful doubts, he looks to the Lord, to what He’s done and to who He is. Our God is a God who works wonders. He is a God of love and compassion and mercy. Yes, there are horrible things in the world, evils and terrors and heartaches, all brought here by our own sin and the sin which taints the entire world. But it doesn’t change who God is. When He created man, and when Adam and Eve first sinned, when He led His people out of Egypt, and when they complained in the wilderness, when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, and when the Jews hung Him on a cross to die—He was, and is, and evermore will be (Hebrews 13:8). Our God doesn’t change, He doesn’t grow weary, and He doesn’t leave us (Malachi 3:6, Deuteronomy 31:5). He is, was, and will forever be the God of compassion who healed the sick, the Father of patience who taught the children, and the Savior of love made a way for us to come to Him. His mercies endure forever (Psalm 136).
As I get ready to face another week, surely filled with as much heartache and sadness as the ones before, I look to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. The Lord who made the heavens and earth, the Lord who made these people and loves them more than I could ever know and the Lord who sent His Son for them, and hasn’t forgotten or abandoned them. He is their Lord, and my Lord, and the Lord of all lords.
“Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in You.” (Psalm 33:20-22, English Standard Version)