The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Touching the Wound

Episode Date: March 31, 2017

When someone close to you suffers, do you fall into "Hallmark Theology," or do you have the courage to "touch the wound"? Jeff talks about the difference between these two responses to suffering, and shares candidly about his father-in-law's recent passing.

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show, Episode 9, Touching the Wound. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. I want to welcome you to the show.

it's a joy to get together with you every week and talk about life and how our faith really informs our life and drives our life and sometimes the topics that we talk about are really joyful and you know it's it's kind of light and fun things that are happening in our life and and other times we talk about theology and the Bible and studying and things like that but then there's times where life kind of hits you you know right in the face and and you weren't expecting things. And I want to talk about those today as well. And the topic that I've chosen for today fits right into what's happening in my life.

My father-in-law just died. We're all very close to Andy. My father-in-law and his funeral was just a few days ago, and it's been a very difficult time for the family. And in the midst of it, my wife has been struggling with some health issues, which I'll share with you briefly about. It's not a secret or anything. She lets me share these things.

And in the midst of that, I got whooping cough and started coughing and coughing and coughing and life is happening right in front of us. And I want to talk about touching the wound in your life. And when somebody else is hurting, touching the wound, helping them to pick up the cross rather than running from it. Maybe you have someone in your life right now, that is hurt. Maybe it's a suffering that is physical or a moral suffering of the heart,

and you don't know what to say to him. You don't know what to give them. You don't know what is in bounds and out of bounds, and maybe you don't feel qualified. Maybe you feel surprised or you're reluctant to be used by the Lord at that cancer ward or at that funeral home or in hospice. And I want to talk to you about that in the experience that I I just went through with my father-in-law, and I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to share with you even what I wrote about him for the funeral that was read at the end. And I think that's what this show is about. It's about sharing the good things in our life and sharing the difficulties in our life.

Before we get into that, I just want to take a moment to say a thank you to all of our wonderful listeners. We've had so much good response and very constructive response about the show with, you know, suggestions on topics that people want to, they want to hear about. Sandra in California wants to know about, you know, Orthodox Church versus a Roman Catholic view of things. We have Sandra from Massachusetts wants to talk about spiritual mentorship, just a lot of really good topics. And we'll probably get to many of these in the future for future shows. I'm looking at many of the email. and texts that we've received, and I just want you to know that I read them, and I'm very grateful,

very, very grateful for that. So, hey, by the way, if you would like to know more about the show, I want you to go to ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcasts, and you can look at the show notes. One thing that makes this show different is that we have a great team. Marisa is my producer, and she does a great job of taking it. all the scriptures that I'm talking about, pictures and links, and putting them into the show notes for you because we know that you're probably driving in the car in many cases, and we don't want you to take notes while you're driving, so we've provided those notes for you. You can also go to iTunes,

and you can rank the show, you can give us some comments and feedback. We really do appreciate that. We really, really do. We're talking today about touching the wound of others and not being afraid. to do that and what do we say what do we do we do you know this this topic uh came up many years ago uh as i was at a men's conference with steve wood many of you are familiar with him and i was standing in the back in the foyer and this lady came up to me i think she was either dropping her husband off or i don't know what she was doing but she came up to me and uh she just looked at me and she said i hate you and i said what are you talking about you hate me And she said, I hate you.

And I said, what is your name? I don't even know your name. And she told me your name. And I said, oh, why do you hate me? And she said, well, I watch you on TV. I read your books and I hear you speaking and so forth. And you just seem to have it all together. And you're happy and all joyful.

And in the meantime, my husband is really struggling and he wants to teach. And he's not able to do some of the things that he wants to do. And it just bothers me. I hate you. So I started to talk to her at that point, and I said, do you really know me? She goes, well, I know what I see on TV and what I read and so forth. And I said, but do you really know me? Because yes, I am joyful and very grateful and thankful that all that God has done in my life.

But are you aware of what's happening in my life right now? And she said, well, no, not really. And at that particular time, it was kind of interesting because I was actually facing from Mayo Clinic, with some degree of certainty, that I was going to have a major surgery there on my vocal cords because I had been experiencing great pain in my life when I was speaking. And it turns out I didn't have to do that, praise God. They found a different solution, and I was allergic to something.

But I was facing literally, I think, three or four weeks from that time that I spoke to the woman, major surgery and the doctor even told me to start learning sign language. That scared me. I had a number of other things that were happening in my life at the time, and I mentioned him to her, and she goes, oh, I didn't know. I didn't know. And my point in sharing that with you is that so often when we live out our life, we encounter people that are carrying crosses and going through difficulties in their life

that we don't even know. And in some cases we do know. We see the cross that they are carrying. We do see the fact that they are receiving chemotherapy right now. We do see the fact that they are weeping because they've lost a child or they have lost their job or they have a broken leg or whatever it might be. Or they just lost a loved one and they're going to a funeral. Or you're at the funeral parlor and people are looking at their loved ones.

their loved ones in a casket and people don't know what to say and so I want to talk about that I want to talk about what I would call touching the wound now we naturally avoid suffering in our lives and I say naturally avoid it okay we would naturally avoid suffering in our in our life and we naturally avoid wanting anything to do with a cross in Jesus day the cross was the most wicked form of death and inflicted by the Romans on people who were not in agreement with them politically or committed some kind of crime Now, we're not interested in ourselves carrying a cross and we don't want to pick up our own cross You know typically much less someone else's cross and when we encounter somebody else carrying a cross

We become uncomfortable sometimes and we end up We end up You know coming up with another kind of thing theology. And that theology is things like, well, you know, just I'll pray for you, or Lord takes the most beautiful flowers first, you know, and I call it Hallmark theology. No disrespect to Hallmark, but people don't need Hallmark theology so much as they need real life love and people who are not afraid to confront the cross and to embrace that cross with them. People who are not afraid to touch the wound. And so we're so uncomfortable. We don't know what to do and we don't know

what to say. But we do know one thing, and that is that Jesus said in Mark chapter 8 and verse 34, he called to him the multitude with his disciples and said to them, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So we know that we are called to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, which means that we, in our suffering, have a part to play in God's redemptive plan. And as Paul said in Colossians 124, I rejoice in my suffering for your sake and I fill up in my body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. And what Paul meant by that was that not that Jesus only came up with 98% of the suffering, and we have to now come up with too, but what he meant, and this is also backed up by St. Augustine and St. John Paul II,

and that is that what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ is the lacking of the suffering of the mystical body of Christ, the church. In other words, we have a part to play. We can pick up our cross, and if we join that by offering it up in union with Jesus, our suffering becomes redemptive and this is just part of the disciples life and we'll do a whole show on this later. I don't want to go into that real deeply right now, but I do want to dedicate one whole show in the future just on redemptive suffering and we'll probably be doing that in the next month or so. So we know that we're called to pick up our cross but what we're talking about today is what do you do when you suddenly have the opportunity to pick up someone else's

cross or you are a witness to their suffering in their life. This is what happened with a man in the New Testament by the name of Simon. In Mark chapter 15 and verse 21 and it's mentioned I think three times in the Gospels, Jesus was carrying his crossbar to Calvary where he was going to be crucified and as he was going throughout the streets, it says in Mark 15 that the Romans compelled a passer-by. In other words, they made him, they forced him to carry the cross of Jesus. It says in verse 21, and they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. So there you got a guy that maybe he's he's on the way to shop maybe he's on the way to have lunch with

someone maybe he's he has to do a business deal whatever it might be and suddenly the son of god has been nailed to this crossbar and is is moving along through the city streets and the romans are there and they force him into service to help carry the cross of the son of God. Amazing. Now, sometimes we volunteer to help others, but sometimes we feel like, you know what? I was just there. I was just there, and suddenly I had this opportunity, or maybe you might even say, I just felt forced in some way to do this. You know, I didn't want to do it. I didn't have the time to do it. I felt uncomfortable doing it, but they made me do it. Or it just seemed like I should do it, even though I didn't really want.

want to. I read an interesting article by Richard Grebink. He got his master's from Franciscan University. I just found this online. I don't know him, but I found his article helpful to me at this time when we're talking about Simon and particularly the death of my father-in-law this last week. He mentions in the article, and by the way, he does he does articles for Lay Witness Magazine, National Catholic Register, Catholic Books Review. Hope to meet you, Richard sometime, but you said something in your article on Simon that really made me think and it really encouraged me, you know, in what I've been going through in this last week with illness and the loss of a loved one. You brought out in the article, Richard, and I thought

it was so good, and I'll pass this on, that Simon most likely was surprised at being singled out. No doubt. He suddenly is taken by the Romans and said, you're going to carry the Christ. this guy. You're going to help him. But no but's about it. You're going to do it. And no doubt it surprised him. He was singled out. And I'd ask you, have you ever felt that way that when somebody was facing difficulties in their life and they were looking for volunteers and someone volunteered you to do it? Were you surprised? In the article he mentions also that Simon may have been annoyed by the schedule change in his day perhaps or inconvenienced. that day and I know that in this last month that my father-in-law has been in hospice

there's been a lot of surprises there's been a lot of natural annoyances I guess you could say or feeling inconvenienced everything changed in our lives another thing is maybe Simon felt reluctant I'm not ready for this you know I can't I can't handle this this is not going to be good for me I'm not trained for for this, you know, very reluctant. And that's the way I noticed that people feel when they suddenly are faced with somebody else's cross. Might be at a cancer ward where you walk in to visit someone

and maybe it smells different in there. Maybe they look different now. They don't have the hair that they used to. Maybe it's discouraging for them. And you come in and you see the cross, that they are caring and you naturally as a good person ask yourself what do I do what can I say what should I do and so often we we don't end up doing what we really want to do in our heart we don't say what we really want to say in our

heart we don't take the action that that we really knew we should we should have taken you know later and so we say to them well you're in my prayers and that's good don't get me wrong. You're in my prayers. People should be in our prayers. And that's what we're called to do, right? Is to pray for one another. But so often there's more that we could say that's substantive. We can give them a hug. We can embrace them. We can tell them that we love them, that we can tell them that they're not alone and that we will be with them in the midst of this. I will carry the cross with you. I'll be here tomorrow morning. I'll come tonight.

Is there anything you need? I want to bring it to you. I have a poem I want to read. I have a couple scriptures I want to read to you. Can I help you in any way? You know, there was a number of years ago that I was working in a trauma unit as a pastoral consultant

in training doctors and nurses on what to do in the midst of death and how to talk to family members and how to handle it themselves. And one of the things I brought out was that in that crisis when people are facing this cross in their life, we need to be very transparent and very honest. Transparent, honest, and to say the things that we know we want to say,

but maybe we don't have the guts to say them. And we need the help of the Lord to do that. It will make a difference. Anyway, I was working in this trauma unit and I got into the practice of carrying plastic surgical gloves in my glove compartment in case I ran across an accident or someone in need, I would be prepared. If you like to put it this way, we could say, I was practicing to be Simon of Cyrene by having these gloves in the glove compartment and a few medical supplies in case I ran across an accident. At least I knew what I could do to help carry the cross of this person until the ambulance came in. And one day I was riding behind a motorcycle. And I started to realize very quickly that the oncoming traffic was not going to stop,

and this guy, then the motorcycle was going to get hit. And in fact, he did. He got broadsided right in front of me at an intersection. And he went down, and it was bad. And I pulled over and I screeched with the brakes. I grabbed the gloves out of the glove compartment, the plastic surgical gloves, put them on my hand. I ran out there and his leg was in awful shape.

It was broken above the knee, bent all the way back up to his head and blood everywhere. And he was in pain and he was going into shock and I put myself in between his face and his knees so he couldn't see it. I held his leg together like a tourniquet until the ambulance came. And he kept saying, how bad is it? And I said, you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. And I prayed with him.

Now, what I did there was I kind of was like Simon, but I volunteered for it. He ended up in surgery, was in the hospital for weeks, and we ended up becoming friends after that. But it was an example, and I'm sharing it with you as an example of someone. suddenly the situation was there and I had a choice. Was I going to drive by and say, I'll pray for you? Or was I going to touch the wound? Was I going to be a part of his life that I normally wouldn't do? It wasn't natural for me to do, but as a Christian it was supernatural that I could serve in this way. Now I think anybody can do that. That's not a heroic thing

to do at all. I think it's just simply, yes, I'll touch the wound. I'm not afraid to touch the wound in someone else's life. And I want to, before we take a break here, I just want to ask you, think about the situations in your life. Have you had situations in your life where you were at a funeral as I have been in this last week? I'll share with that on the other side of the break. Or you were at a hospital or you were with a friend

who's just their husband just walked out on him? Or they just found out that their children are been arrested, they're addicted to drugs, alcohol and their life seems to be going south and you were with them, but you were afraid to go beyond a certain point, beyond simply saying, I'll pray for you, into really loving them and becoming vulnerable. I think we all have to some degree. I guess the point of this show and the direction I'd like to go in this show is to encourage

you to be available to the Lord to touch the wound of other people. To go beyond a simple, I'll pray for you, which is good, to, I will be with you, and I won't let you go, and I will find help in other people's lives. I'll go where people are uncomfortable to go, to love you, because Jesus went where others wouldn't go to love us, and now we're called to do the same thing. We're called to do the same thing. We're going to take a break when we come back.

I want to talk to you about my father-in-law, and a little bit about what we went through and what I noticed about other people who were not afraid to touch our wounds when we went through this difficult time in the last week of the passing of my father-in-law. Still kind of tender in a way. And I just want to share that with you

and this is real Christianity, this is real Catholicism, this is real faith in real life right now. You're listening to this. the Jeff Kaven show. We'll be back in just a moment. It's hard to live out your Catholic faith on your own. In fact, the Bible reveals that we need a community of people to help us on our journey of faith. If you're interested in finding that community by joining or starting a small group study,

visit ascensionpress.com and sign up for a free ascension account. With your account, you'll get all the tools you need to start walking with others towards Christ. Welcome back to the show. We're talking about touching the wound today. I want to remind you that all of the things that we're talking about, we put them in the show notes, and you can go to ascensionpress.com forward slash podcast. Click on the Jeff Kaven Show. And I like to put these notes together for you so that if you're driving or riding your motorcycle, whatever you might be doing, you don't have to take notes during the show. Before the break, I mentioned to you, this has been a tough month, a month and a half or so for my wife and myself and in the middle of it we're Christians we're Catholics and we don't take a break from our faith and I can't take a break from being a husband and a father and a you know a son-in-law and to my mother-in-law and my father-in-law but my last week my father-in-law died after a couple months struggle and about a week in hospice care for those of you that don't know what hospice is hospice is near-death

care when you're really coming down to the line, you know, down to the wire, and people care for you and they love you. And I ran into an extraordinary woman who runs a hospice center that I want to talk to you about just a moment. But let me tell you a little bit about my father-in-law. I've been married 39 years and Andy Tobler, my father-in-law, and he is an incredible man. And he's the one that gave me the greatest gift outside of Jesus, the greatest. gift in my life, which is my wife, Emily. We met when we were 18 and 17 years old. We got engaged at 19 and 18. And of course, to get engaged, I had to go through her father, Andy. And that was almost 40 years ago. And he was in his 50s at that point. He died at 91. And I still remember asking him for her hand in marriage and him saying yes, that I could. It was really, really something and so the last 40 years he's been a part of my life as a father and and uh and uh they've become close and and i've learned a lot a lot from him uh i want to read to you the the letter that i wrote that was read at the end of the funeral a number of people wrote some

things and they asked me would you like to say anything and i said no i don't i'm i am a speaker right now I'm a son and I didn't think I could do it so I didn't and I wrote it and it was read and it tells you a little bit about my father-in-law and then I'll talk to you a little bit about what we went through and the people that were not afraid to touch the wound

when I first met the Tobler's I was 18 years old Emily and I met at a cultural anthropology class at Normandale Junior College in Bloomington in Minnesota, I had never met a family that was so focused on the Bible church and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I daily met with Alice Emily's mother for a week or so and listened as she expounded on the Bible and introduced me to a new and exciting relationship with Jesus. Andy, Emily's father, wasn't around in the mid-afternoon the time when I met with Emily and her mother, but I do remember the first time I met him.

It was a week or so later that Andy came home after a hard day's work. I was nervous. I wondered what kind of a man was married to Alice and what was the father of Emily like. I found out in the weeks that followed that he came home every day at the same time with a lunchbox. He was a faithful, hard-working man. Another first impression was that he was quiet and deep. As the months passed, I knew that I wanted to do. Mary Emily. While visiting the Tobler's in a small town in northern Minnesota at a cabin,

I knew it was time to ask Andy for the hand and heart of his beautiful daughter. He gave me permission to marry Emily, and it was at that time that I became acutely aware that I now had a relationship with Andy as well. It wasn't until I became the father of three daughters that I understood the quiet thoughts he must have had had over and over these last 40 years take care of my treasure, he must have thought. As the years have passed and we approach 40 years of marriage, I have noticed that Emily is very much like her father, both in looks and in life's interest. She didn't completely invent herself. His quiet life helped her to form her into an interesting mosaic that resembles his fascinating life.

He passed away on a special day in the Catholic liturgical year, the Feast of St. Joseph. St. Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus, was an amazing husband and father. I have a special devotion to St. Joseph, as that is my confirmation name. Andy's passing on that feast day is a continued reminder that not only was Andy an amazing husband and father, but I must continue on imitating those who have gone before me. As I spoke to Andy in the last 24 hours of his life, I thanked him for giving me the greatest treasure that anyone could give me his daughter. I told him, as I was leaning over his bed in the last hours of his life,

I will take care of her. Don't you worry. I told him that everything we have been involved in in terms of evangelization he has had a part in. Yes, Andy was quiet. But his participation in the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ is felt in both Emily and my life. I have been honored to be a co-worker with Andy Tobler in the kingdom of God, your son-in-law. Now, I got to share those thoughts with him in literally his last hours of life. And it was in those last hours of life that I became really, really aware of how many blessings we have in our life.

You know that it was in those last hours that many people are afraid to touch the wound. They don't know what to say. But I want to encourage you in those last hours of your loved ones' lives, don't be afraid to touch the wound. And what I mean by that is don't be afraid to share the deep thoughts that you that you have, that you want to share, the things that you would regret not sharing if they passed, to be a comfort to say, we are with you, we love you. You are in the hands of Jesus. I noticed something in the last three weeks where things looked dire and it didn't look good for my father-in-law.

I noticed that people began to focus on the important players here, his wife, his three children. Neighbors and friends and brothers and sisters in Christ began to swarm around them like white blood cells, taking care of the wounded. When the body begins to shut down, the vital organs take precedence, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the lungs. and all the energy in the body begins to focus on those critical organs. I noticed this in the last three weeks of Andy's life when it looked very critical. Friends, clergy, and people began to surround the very important people in Andy's life, including himself, of course, my mother-in-law, my wife Emily,

her brother Mark and Michael. And I saw a beautiful thing come together. as they began to support those and began to carry their cross in a beautiful transparent way not in a greeting card kind of way but in a real way a way that expressed love and care in their life and it was beautiful it was really really beautiful in short I could say that people were not afraid to touch the wound in the last three days we ended up bringing Andy to a very special hospice care house called Ark on the River on the Mississippi River and it was beautiful

because Andy was from Switzerland and he loved the outdoors and as a young man heard about the Mississippi in the United States and when he came over here as part of the Marshall Plan and married my mother-in-law he he took a fascination was fascinated with Lewis and Clark and exploration, the Mississippi, and so forth. No one ever knew that as we began to pray novenous for him and commit him to St. Joseph's prayers and the Blessed Mother, that he would make his way to the Mississippi in his last three days. And I want to tell you about the lady that runs it because it so touched me.

Her name was Donna. Donna was an amazing woman. she has spent her life working in hospice caring for people in the final days of their life she is a woman who is not afraid to touch the wound of other people she's not a woman who is afraid to touch the cross of other people

and she would sit next to my father-in-law and she would hold his hand and she would talk to him in the most loving way and it wasn't just we're praying for you but it was thoughts about your family it was thoughts about heaven she was a Christian and one day of the last day

it so touched me he literally had hours to live she sat at the edge of his bed and she prayed and interceded for him as a hospice care nurse and I got a good glimpse right there of what it is to touch the wound and to not be afraid

to do that and it really touched my life and so I wanted to share that with you this week that whatever you're going through whoever you're visiting it's a time for you to be transparent humble yourself it's not about you it's about the one carrying the cross help them love them say the things to them that you would want someone to say to you give them the good news of Jesus Christ in the same way that you would want to hear it give them peace give them a warm hand give them loving eyes and help them with that cross i really wanted to share that with you this week and like like all the shows we're doing you know it it might be for for one person it might be for a few people who are really going

through you know a tough time in their life right now And my last words to my father-in-law were the words that I wanted to say and I stood there for a few minutes and I didn't know how to say it and I didn't know if I could actually say it. But at the end, I just had to do it and help him in his cross. As I looked at him and said, I'll take care of your daughter. I will love her she's in good hands and your family

I'd like to close in prayer and then I want to share with you a little bit about the show and how you can help us with the show and blessing other people but will you pray with me right now maybe you're going through something right now and you're in a relationship with someone

and you don't know exactly what to do I would ask you to call on Jesus for wisdom and call on Jesus for courage to be Jesus in that situation, to go from the natural to the supernatural and ask him to give you the words, ask them to give you the courage to lift up that person and help them carry the cross. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, I thank you for dying on a cross for us.

Simon you have given us an example of helping and Lord we want to be the simons in this world today help us Lord we ask you to give us the words and the courage in the situations that we are facing or are about to face where we can touch the wound we can help carry the cross of someone we encounter may we be you to them may they see your eyes and ours may they feel your hands in our hands, may they feel your embrace and your words in us as we help them carry the cross in their life. I thank you, Lord, for my father-in-law. I thank you for all those who came and helped us carry the cross. It has meant so much to us. And particularly, Lord, this nurse that I had never met before and have not seen since who made a huge difference in my life.

and in our life we pray this in Jesus' name Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Friends, it's been good to talk to you today. It's a little different, I know, and I've got a cold in the middle of it. I'm at my kitchen table.

This is real life. And I want to encourage you to share the show with other people who may need to hear some of the things that we're talking about. Once again, I appreciate your emails, all the information's in the show notes. it's at ascensionpress.com forward slash podcast just click on the jeff caven show love to hear ideas from you about shows you'd like to you know topics you'd like to hear about

and anything that's happened as a result of one of the shows like to hear from you earlier i did a show on developing my own posse the saints that i walk with and i can ask to pray for me and we're getting good response and that we'll share that in the future people are putting together their own posse. Well, go out this week and be Jesus in the world and be a real gift to others as you pick up their cross with them. And don't be afraid to touch the wound. God bless you.

Talk to you next time. Thank you.