The Hug

It was a cold, damp, gloomy day. She sat in a pew in the funeral home with some of her friends and one of her professors. Her mother had died unexpectedly, and now she was in a position where she had to carry a lot more of the load at home. I walked down the aisle on the right, and when she saw me, she stood up, walked over, and we embraced. It was a long, tight hug, one you wish you never have to give to one of your students. We talked for a while, still locked in our hug, and then we went and sat down. What do you say to someone at a time like this? Sometimes nothing.

 “…Weep with them that weep.”

Romans 12:15 (ASV)

A hug is a means of communicating love to and unity with another person. They say that it boosts the level of the hormone oxytocin, and they say that helps us connect emotionally with someone else. It’s also claimed that hugging increases the level of the neurotransmitter dopamine in our brain, and as a result hugging helps relieve stress and tension. This is all good and well, but it’s rather technical. When you really, really need a hug and you get a genuine one, you know it’s helpful.

Our ability to encourage a struggling person grows when we struggle. God trains us with comfort in our affliction so that we can transfer our comfort to others.

 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,

who comforts us in all our affliction,

so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction,

with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

II Corinthians 1:3-4 (ESV)

Do you want to be able to comfort others? Ask God to teach you to do so. And then fasten your seatbelt.

It was a much nicer day. I walked into the first floor of the Howell Memorial Science Building in the morning, heading toward my office. As I passed the stairs that lead to the second floor, I heard the rapid pitter-patter of feet coming down. There she was again. “Dr. Vogt! Dr. Vogt! Dr. Vogt! I just found out–I got into medical school! You’re the first person I’ve told!” We met on the first floor, and again we hugged, this time out of joy.

“Rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them that weep.”

Romans 12:15 (ASV)

Sometimes the other side of the coin is glorious.

And Then She Stopped Breathing

During the summer in the Science Building there are a few students working on research projects and some faculty members working on various things. Overall, it’s pretty relaxed, and it’s great to be able to slow down and focus on different activities. On a very rare occasion I even bring our dog, Lexi, as I did on Wednesday this week.

When we arrived, Lexi was greeted by Jersey, who is Jess’s helper dog. After the usual canine preliminaries, we walked elsewhere in the building. Amy, one of my colleagues, came to my office to ask some questions about academic program assessment. As we looked at the screen on my laptop, Amy suddenly pointed out that Lexi had done both number one and number two on the carpet. I immediately went into embarrassed dog-owner mode, stooped down, and started cleaning it up. When I wanted Lexi to move a little, I found that she was completely flaccid and unresponsive. Her face was squished up against the door, and so I swiveled her toward the hall a little. At some point I saw her doing some shallow breathing, and then she became completely still. Amy felt a very faint pulse, but that was it. As I realized that Lexi was leaving us, I also realized that I that I had only one option left: CPR. I leaned down and started doing a few chest compressions and, shortly after I gave up, she started breathing again. I was pretty shaken up by this, and Amy pointed out that Lexi needed to go to the vet immediately.

She weighs roughly 62 pounds, and I picked her up and walked rapidly but carefully out of the building. Derrick went with me to make sure that I could get her into the truck. Lexi was still fairly flaccid, and I was concerned that I might hurt her by carrying her, but I had no choice. I placed her into the passenger seat and pulled out of the parking garage, telling myself to be careful as I drove. Thankfully the light at the front of campus was green when I got there, and I pulled onto Wade Hampton Boulevard, heading toward Ambassador Animal Hospital. The big V8 in the pickup growled as I pushed the accelerator as hard as I thought I should. I pulled into the parking lot, carried Lexi in, and told the receptionist, “I think she’s having a medical emergency.”

Nineteen years earlier, in a different pickup, the big V8 roared as I drove the roughly five miles from our house to Dad’s house in Taylors. He had called me complaining about his heart racing, and also told me that he was hot and red. I told him to call 911 immediately and to then lie down and rest until I arrived. As I did with Lexi, I went as fast as I thought I could. The EMTs didn’t arrive until about 15 minutes after I did. Several days later, at the age of 82, Dad had both a heart valve replacement and a triple bypass (at the same time). As I looked down into his face on the gurney, I told him that I loved him. My mother had died of complications due to bypass surgery five years earlier. As they wheeled Dad down the hall and I stood there alone, I fought back tears, convinced that I would never see him again. Thankfully, with a great deal of help, he did recover. He never did drive again, but the Lord gave him nine more years of life. He died in his bed in our house.

“We’re going to the second room on the left,” she said. They then opened the door to the treatment room across the hall, and we placed Lexi in there so that the vet could attend to her. The door closed, and I sat alone across the hall, still shaken up by the prospect that we might lose her.

A few minutes later, a very large, nicely groomed black poodle walked down the hall, completely unattended. She looked at me, then at the door to the treatment room, and then back at me. She came over and gave me a greeting (a brief closer look), and then turned around and disappeared. I wonder what she was thinking. A little while later the door to the treatment room cracked open, and I could see Lexi standing there. I felt some sense of relief but was still concerned.

We just don’t know when our time will come. When we’re young, we feel like we have a very long life in front of us, but time seems to go faster when we get older. With increasing clarity, we recognize the truth:

“Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

James 4:14 (NASB)

When we exhale on a cold day, we see the water vapor in our breath condense in the air. And then it’s gone. So, too, our lives.

A while later the vet came into the room. The x-rays on the tablet computer very clearly showed that Lexi had pulmonary edema (fluid collected in her lungs) and an enlarged and somewhat misshapen heart. Lexi has heart failure (aka congestive heart failure). We don’t know her exact age because we rescued her. Based on her very gray face, she’s now an elderly boxer, and she’s probably somewhere around 10. She’s getting a diuretic (furosemide) to remove fluid from her lungs – this is the same diuretic that people often take when they have heart failure. When it arrives, she’ll also be getting a pet-specific drug to help her heart. Today is Saturday, and this morning her energy level was up. With some help, we hope that she’ll live for at least a couple more years. Like people, though, her days are numbered.

It's Not Supposed to be Easy

I failed the exam. It was my first academic quarter in graduate school at the University of Florida, and I was sitting in Dr. King’s graduate organic spectroscopy course looking at my graded test paper. It wasn’t a C or a D, but a good, solid F. Very sad face. Deep breath. Call Carla back at BJU and pour out my heart. Deep breath. OK, let’s work harder. And so I did. I returned to class after the next test was graded, hoping for a good grade, and I had improved. To a D.

What was going on? First, I had done pretty well at BJU and I was simply studying as I had done before. It wasn’t working, and I needed to change my ways. This isn’t surprising—I’ve seen this many times in my students over the years. Apparently my approach was inadequate. Second, I was treating my studies mechanically, with an attitude of “I know how to do this, and so I’ll just execute my strategy.” In of itself, there’s nothing wrong with doing things that we think will work. The problem was that I had factored the Lord out of the picture. One of the Psalms says,

“Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it;

Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.”

Psalm 127:1 (NASB)

The author was Solomon, and he surely knew what he was talking about. No, you can’t even build a house without God’s blessing upon the process. A simple flood or fire takes care of it, regardless of how much those hard-working construction workers try. No, you can’t even pass your graduate organic spectroscopy course without God’s blessing upon the process. God was tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Remember Me, Brian?” I sought Him in prayer. I prayed as if it were all up to Him and worked as if it were all up to me.

Third, although I had no knowledge at that time that the Lord would direct me to teach at BJU, He was preparing me to have input into the chemistry curriculum at BJU. My undergraduate chemistry training had some deficiencies in it, and God intended me to help address them. Some dealt with organic spectroscopy, and we have remedied those.

I think it was after my D that I approached Dr. King after class one day and reminded him that I wasn’t doing well. I also pointed out that I had become aware that my fellow graduate students had access to files of his old tests, and that they were relying on them when preparing. I had a conscience problem with this, and so I asked him point blank, “Is it OK for me to use those files when studying for tests?” Dr. King was a colorful old professor. Short, balding, with long, flowing white hair on the sides of his head and a long, white beard. He walked with a pronounced limp, and he spoke with a stereotypical English accent. Apparently, nobody had ever asked him a question like this. “Ahem, aaaah, of course, I know such things happen, but, aah, AHEM, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I APPROVE of them.” And there it was. I just couldn’t do it because my conscience wouldn’t allow me to. I didn’t use those files. I think I got a D+ on the next test. Things were going well.

Dr. King decided to use a final exam consisting of all new questions. He was probably thinking something like, “I’m going to find out what they REALLY know.” I got the highest grade in the class. My determination to do what was right, my reliance on the Lord, my hard work, and let us not forget a major and essential part of this—God’s blessing on my efforts—led to a really good grade. Dr. King gave me a B+ in that course, and I’ve never been so happy for a B+ in my life. I think he was generous, and, given my earlier performance, there was no way to justify my getting an A. And then the Lord used another course the next quarter to work on me some more. He’s still working on me, and it’s not easy.

We have a natural tendency to think that things should go smoothly. We think that if we’re thankful, and we rejoice, and we spend enough time in prayer and reading God’s word, and we let the peace of God rule in our hearts, and we praise Him enough, then life will be idyllic. It doesn’t work like that.

“…That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Philippians 3:10-11 (NASB)

We love the idea of experiencing the power of His resurrection and, in keeping with His promises, being raised from death to life eternal. What we are told of that life suggests that it will be idyllic. The problem is the part stuck in the middle: getting a taste of His suffering, giving up our will daily, and accepting affliction when He knows that it will accomplish His purpose. Lots of people suffer in one way or another, but only His children gain eternal benefit from it.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe, is fully God, but He became fully human. In His humanity, He set aside the full expression of His divinity. As a young person, he learned. He submitted to His parents. He grew, He matured, and He had a public ministry. He had anguish in His soul, grieved, and wept. He was a man of sorrows. They reviled Him, they spit upon Him. They crucified Him. It doesn’t sound idyllic to me. And we’re supposed to follow His example.

I’m currently reading a book on the humanity of Christ, and I’m going to quote a short passage from it:

“The life of faith, of growing faith and strengthened character, is one that involves a fight for faith and enduring through difficulties. This life of faith is never lived on auto-pilot; it is never a life of passivity and ease; it isn’t something done to us without our full and active participation. These glimpses we’ve seen of Jesus—who offered prayers and supplications through loud crying and tears, who prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane for the cup to be removed—give evidence to the active, war-like nature of the life of faith. If anyone might be thought to have lived on auto-pilot, it would be Jesus. After all, along with his true and full humanity, he was fully God; and although he had the nature of a man, his human nature was totally sinless. You would think such a person (unlike any of us!) could coast. To have a divine nature and a sinless human nature would seem to make obedience easy. Well, look again at Jesus. What you see is a man who labored to obey, who agonized in the testings the Father designed for him, who fought through the trials of life to maintain his integrity and obedience before his Father.”

Why should it be any different for those that follow Him?