without complaining

I have a memory that is forever etched in my mind.  It happened eight years ago in a treatment room at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.  There were only three of us in the room that day.  Me (an inexperienced little student)...a 10 year-old boy....and his mother.  It was an ordinary moment.  Simple, but somehow profound in the same moment.  And, to this day I remember it like it was yesterday. 

 

This morning it was brought back to the front of my mind.  I was listening to a sermon in church on a portion of Philippians chapter 2:

 

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

 



 

As I listened to the pastor teaching through the passage, my mind wandered back to that day at St. Jude when a little 10 year-old boy, with no seminary training and probably no idea of the lesson he taught me stood before me as my patient.  We were starting our treatment session, and he was complaining about not feeling well and being in a lot of pain when his mother looked at him and said "What have I told you about complainig?"  At first, I wanted to slap her in the face.  The nerve.  He was a sick little boy suffering from cancer, and as far as I was concerned he had every right to complain.  And then he opened his mouth to answer her, and it was if I had been slapped....right. across. the. face.  I will never forget what he said next.  He said, "do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life..."  He literally recited it from memory.  I'm not really sure how I did not lose it right then and there.  It suddenly put all of my little complaints in their place.  Here was a little kid who should have been in school with his friends...who should have been playing baseball and football...who should have been getting into mischief with the other little boys in the neighborhood.  Instead he was learning words like chemotherapy, platelet counts, and bone marrow transplant.  Here was a little boy whose body was literally being invaded by the awful disease called cancer.  The reason his back hurt so much is that it had spread to the bones of his spine.  And he was talking about "not complaining". 

 

 

I am such a complainer.  I may not always say it out loud, but I'm thinking it.  In reality I have no reason to complain.  I have so many things to be thankful for and to rejoice in.  I confess that I have a heart that wants to complain.  A heart that wants to be critical of my circumstances...of others....of the world around me....even of God Himself.  Complaining comes easy.  It's natural.  Thankfulness is hard.  I want to replace my complaining and critical spirit with a heart of thankfulness. 

 

My 10-year-old patient was definitely shining like a star that day as he held out the word of life to me.  He was a living example to me of this passage.  He showed me what a true heart of thankfulness looks like even in the worst of circumstances, and I'm sure I will never forget it.