“Oh, how I remember fondly the the efficiency and ease of doing business in Saudi Arabia!”

This is a phrase I never thought I would utter, but after six months in France, it is a sentiment I have expressed to myself more than once.  Living in France and trying to get established here feels like a giant exercise in frustration and futility.  It is like someone threw me into the middle of a Rugby match without ever explaining the rules when I have never seen how a game is played.  All I know is I have the ball and I am supposed to do something with it and a bunch of burly guys are running at me with the intention of throwing me on the ground. If I’m honest, I’m not really happy.  I know that sounds crazy living in the south of France, but it’s true.  There have been great moments, but overall it has been difficult, frustrating, lonely, and overwhelming, and happy is not a word I would use to describe these past six months.  Does that mean we made a mistake?  No!  I didn’t come here to be happy.  I came here to learn a new language and a new culture.  I came here to expose our children to a different way of life.  I came here to learn a whole new way of looking at the world.  I came here to grow, and growth involves struggle.  There is no growth without struggle.

We spend much of our lives trying to make ourselves happy.  Our focus is centered around it.  Advertisers tell us that we aren’t happy enough and that their products will make us happier.  We consume millions of advertisements over our lives that promise happiness if we just try a new product or system.  Friends parade glossy pictures online of their happy lives.  It reminds us that we are not as happy as they are.  Parents tell their children, “I don’t care what you do for a living as long as you’re happy.”  We split up our families and end marriages because that special person who use to do it for us no longer makes us happy.  Happiness has become the holy grail of modern life.  Don’t get me wrong.  Happiness is awesome.  I love being happy.  It is so much fun when it is there.  But what if happiness isn’t the point?

What if God’s purpose transcends our temporal quest for happiness?  What if God has something bigger and better for us than happiness?  The heart of the Gospel is that God sent his son to redeem humanity and reconcile people to himself.  Christians recently celebrated Easter.  It is a celebration of the unfair arrest, trial, beating, torture, crucifixion and abject humiliation of Jesus.  We refer to “Good Friday” but if we had been there, we would not have seen anything we would have called “good.”  The resurrection on Easter morning occurred after pain and struggle.  Happiness was not the theme of Jesus’ message.

Or what about his early followers?  It’s not hard to make the case that all of the disciples’ lives were much less happy because of their choice to follow Jesus.  All of the first disciples lived lives of trial and torture.  They were harassed and mistreated.  All but John were killed for their faith.  A rag tag group of followers watched Jesus die a brutal death and then something changed them.  The resurrection was so powerful and left such a mark on their lives that they chose to walk away from temporal happiness in order to walk toward a life of spiritual maturity.  It’s not a very good sales slogan:

Join the Jesus movement and live a life of service, harassment, denying yourself, and loving your enemies.  You will wrestle with failure and frustration, and ultimately die a painful death in furtherance of a mission you will not get to see come to fruition during your earthly life!

Something obviously caught hold of those early disciples, something bigger than happiness.

The Bible reminds us that not only will we not always be happy, but that suffering is an unavoidable and necessary part of our growth and maturity.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James 1:2-4

Or how about this.

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!  They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”

Hebrews 12:7-12

Lately I have been really missing Henry.  Everything reminds me of him.  Car rides to school each day with the kids listening to my favorite childhood music reminds me that I never got to share that with Henry.  Seeing children who are the age Henry would be reminds me how much bigger he would be now.  At every dinner, in every family picture, on every trip, at every bedtime, there is hole, a missing piece that will never be filled.  No matter what happens in my life, no matter where I go or what I achieve, nothing will bring him back.  I have lost him and that is painful.

But I have also grown.  Recently I went on a business trip and as I was packing my toiletries, I was reminded just how far I have come.  I found a plastic bag with pills that I had not seen or thought of in a long time. There were packs of Ambien and Ativan that were partly used.  I remember meeting with my psychiatrist friend the day after Henry died, hours before I would depart on my twenty-hour journey from Saudi Arabia to Florida, when he prescribed them for me.

“No alcohol with either of these pills.  I’m serious.  NO ALCOHOL.”

I remember the flight home on Emirates.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  I tried to watch a movie, but I couldn’t make myself understand the words.  I tried to read, but my mind wouldn’t focus. Fifteen hours from Dubai to Orlando. Sometimes it would overwhelm me and I would sit and quietly sob.

“How can my son be dead?  How can Henry be gone?”  I kept asking myself.  The flight attendant came and silently gave me tissues.

I remember meeting my two older children at my parents’ house.  They had been staying with their Memaw and Papaw for a week.  It was their first time to be away from mom or dad for that long.  They were surprised to see me.  We played for awhile and then I suggested that we take a walk.  We walked to Crescent Lake Park in St. Petersburg, Florida and found a bench.  I was about to change their world and it would never be the same.  They both looked up at me with sweet smiles.

“I’m so excited to see both of you.”  I said.  “I love you so much and it makes me so happy to be with you.  But I’m here for a sad reason.”

“The dog died?!”  Our daughter blurted out.

“No,” I said.  “Maggie didn’t die.  Henry died. He found a plastic bag outside of his crib and he got it over his head and suffocated.”

The funeral, the days and weeks after that conversation are largely a blur. I would take an Ambien each night and as I drifted off, I welcomed the eight hours of peace ahead of me – no  grief, no loss, just sleep.  Then in the day, I would take an Ativan and the warm calm would slowly take hold and it was just enough to take the edge off and help me get through the day.

Seeing the baggie with the foil blisters pushed open and the missing pills made me remember those early days.  It is like remembering having third degree burns all over my body.  I wasn’t sure how we would make it then.  I wasn’t sure how we would go on, but we did. God has shown himself faithful. Through the loss and the suffering I have found a new life and beauty that I never knew was possible.  I have seen God work miracles.  I have grown in ways I never imagined.  I have fallen in love with God.

I’m not sure why God took Henry.  I think I may never understand on this side of Heaven.  But my loss and suffering have led me to the conclusion that God is more interested in my maturity than in my happiness.  He is more interested in my character than in my comfort. He wants to develop solid men and women who are effective and capable to participate in his mission of reconciliation with humanity through Christ.  God wants us to learn and grow and change for the better.

In our modern lives we have forgotten the wisdom of the ages, that God disciplines us.  He doesn’t do it to be mean or cruel.  He does it because he loves us.  He does it to make us mature.  But we seek out every opportunity to trade meaningful maturity for the pursuit of temporal happiness.  Happiness is ephemeral and fickle.  What makes me happy today may make me miserable tomorrow. Ironically, chasing happiness is a guarantee of never finding it.  Happiness isn’t the point, maturity is.  In the same way that we only grow stronger by lifting weights that are too heavy, or by running distances that are difficult, we can only grow through struggle.

When someone tells you that God wants you to be happy, be careful.  Jesus lived a life and died a death of humility and suffering.  His disciples lived lives of suffering and loss too.  If we are going to be followers of Christ, it is likely that our lives will involve suffering.  We may not be happy, but we can still have joy.  Happiness is temporary.  It is based on circumstances.  Joy is eternal.  It is rooted in the character of God – a God of radical redemptive love for humanity. It is connected to the sacrifice of Christ who took on human form and suffered a painful and humiliating death to redeem wretched sinners who didn’t deserve it.  And it is based on the hope of God’s promises – promises that our struggles and suffering are not in vain and that there will be a day when they will end.

So as I struggle with ridiculous bureaucratic rules and centuries old systems that seem designed for maximum frustration, I take heart.  I can do many things now that I couldn’t do when I first arrived in France.  I know many things now that I didn’t know before.  I look back on how far God has brought us since August 3, 2016, and I say, “bring it on.”  You can take heart in your struggles too.  God is growing you.  If God is for us, who can be against us?!