Philip Yancey's Wife Shares The Suffering Of An ...

Philip Yancey’s Wife Shares the Suffering of an Elderly Man

Philip Yancey- My wife worked with some of the poorest people in the city of Chicago, directing a program of a church that intentionally seeks out lonely and abandoned senior citizens no one else cares for. Many times I have seen her pour herself into a senior citizen’s life, trying to convince the senior that it matters whether he or she lives or dies. One man Janet worked with, 90 year old Mr. Kruider, refused cataract surgery for 20 years. At age 70 he had decided that nothing much was worth looking at and, anyhow, God must have wanted him blind if he made him that way. Maybe it was God’s punishment for looking at pornography as a youngster, he said. It took my wife 2 years of cajoling, arguing, persisting, and loving to convince Mr. Kruider to have cataract surgery. Finally, Mr. Kruider agreed, for one reason only: Janet impressed on him that it mattered to her, Janet, that he regain his sight. Mr. Kruider had given up on life; it held no meaning for him. But Janet transferred a meaning. It made a difference to someone that even at age 92 Mr. Kruider did not give up. At long last this man agreed to the surgery. In a literal sense, Janet shared Mr. Kruider’s suffering. By visiting so often she convinced him that someone cared and that it mattered whether he lived or died or had sight or not. This is the principle of shared suffering.

From a sermon by Davon Huss, You Need a Family, 6/14/2010