The Essential Perspective Your Children Need Today
Someone you know has been in the hospital with Covid. Someone else you know has been in the hospital from a bad reaction after getting the vaccine. What do we tell our children? How much do we say to them? In their worst moments, the fear of death is real. Teenagers wonder if they have a future. If they do, what will it look like? Substantiated or not, these fears are real to our children. They’re real to us.
Three years ago I started chemo treatment for a rare and incurable illness.
Part of my drug cocktail included dexamethasone. This drug produced a magical side effect: insomnia! Throughout the night I binge watched Netflix and listened to lots of podcasts and audio books. One audio book I listened to was The Gulag Archipelago. In this book, Solzhenitsyn’s story of his eight- year imprisonment in the Russian labor camp system is told. On top of enduring forced labor, torture, and inhumane living conditions, he gets cancer. He survives and writes about it in a novel titled The Cancer Ward. Hearing how he got through this terrible and unimaginable stretch brought me hope and perspective.
During my night vigils, I kept coming back to one particular incident in Solzhenitsyn’s story, one that has been contested by some, but has been retold in many books and on-line websites. It was decisive for him and his survival.
Solzhenitsyn leaned on his shovel and watched the gray clouds drag sullenly across the sky. A merciless wind tore at him through his prison garb. He felt as though it penetrated to his soul. Every one of his bones and muscles ached. Hunger gnawed his stomach. Years of hard labor in the Siberian work camp had ruined his health and stripped him of hope.
Solzhenitsyn could endure no longer. He dropped his shovel, left the work gang, and sat on a bench nearby. Soon a guard would command him to return to work. When he would ignore the order, the guard would beat him to death with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to others many times. A quick, bloody death today, thought Solzhenitsyn, would be better than a slow death in a bleak, empty future.
He stared at the ground, waiting for the inevitable. Soon he heard footsteps and braced himself in anticipation of the guard’s harsh words. But when he raised his eyes, instead of a guard he saw a gaunt, elderly prisoner standing before him. The old man said nothing but knelt in front of Solzhenitsyn. With a stick he scratched the sign of the cross in the dirt and then hurried back to work.
Solzhenitsyn looked at the cross, and as he reflected on it, a ray of light penetrated his dark thoughts. In that moment his perspective changed radically. He realized that he did not have to face the evil of the gulag and the Soviets on his own diminished strength. With the power of the cross, he could withstand the evil of not one but a thousand Soviet empires.
He got up from the bench and returned to work.
The history of the God’s people is marked by difficulty and persecution. The problem is, we don’t know that history very well. Aim this year to learn and teach your children about those who resisted totalitarian regimes, especially the heroes of the church. Teach them to look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, for perspective and hope to carry them through whatever they are facing.
Thanks for reading!
Curt Bumcrot, MRE
