帮助孩子为受苦作预备Helping Children Prepare for Suffering
作者: Truth 78 译者/校对者: 影子/雅斤
我们的孩子通常带着这样的信念长大：上帝应该给予他们舒适和“当下最好的生活”。这样的信念是源于周遭文化所传递的信息，当然也来自其父母的行为。然而，圣经教导我们的却恰好相反。耶稣告诉我们说：“在世上你们有苦难”（约16:33）；彼得说我们不应该惊奇于“有火炼的试验临到你们，似乎是遭遇非常的事”（彼前4:12）；雅各也命令说：“落在百般试炼中，都要以为大喜乐”（雅1:2）。
Children often grow up believing, on
the basis of the cultural messages all around them—as well as the actions of
their parents—that God owes them comfort and their “best life now.” But
Scripture tells us otherwise. Jesus told us that “in this life you will have
tribulation,” Peter said we should not “be surprised when the fiery trial comes
upon us to test us, as though something strange were happening to us,” and
James commands us to “count it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds”
(John 16:33, 1 Peter 4:12, James 1:2).
那么，父母应当怎样与他们的孩子谈论“苦难”呢？如果需要，应该为此做怎样的预备？史蒂夫·沃特斯（Steve
Watters），是“真理78（Truth 78，以下用“T78”代表）”的公共关系主管，与圣经教师南希·格斯里（Nancy
Guthrie，以下用“NG”代表）一起，就父母如何帮助他们的孩子处理并预备苦难的问题展开对话。南希和他的丈夫大卫曾痛失2个孩子，目前他们正在为有相似经历的父母组织静修营。
How then should parents talk to their
children about suffering? And what, if anything, should they do to prepare them
for it? Steve Watters, communications director for Truth78, sat down with Bible
teacher Nancy Guthrie to ask how parents can help their children process and
prepare for suffering. Nancy and David Guthrie experienced the death of two of
their children and now lead respite retreats for parents in similar seasons of
suffering.
T78：请您讲讲，孩子会如何向父母学习面对苦难呢？
T78: How do children learn from
parents how to face suffering?
NG：我们大多数做父母的都认为，不管是关于苦难的问题还是其他的事情，教导孩子主要是透过我们的言语。大卫和我跟许多有罹患癌症或类似绝症的孩子的家长交谈过，发现他们都会特别想知道一件事情：“我要怎么跟孩子说这件事？”然而我认为，孩子通常不首先是通过我们说了什么来学习；他们学习如何面对苦难的首要途径，如何思考、感受和谈论苦难，是透过观察我们。
Nancy Guthrie: Most of us as parents
think that the primary way we teach our children about suffering, or anything
else, is by what we say to them. David and I talk with lots of couples where
someone in the family has a cancer diagnosis or something like that and they
wonder, “how am I going to talk to the kids about this?” I don’t think though,
that it’s primarily through what we say to our children that our children learn
the most. I think the primary way they learn about suffering, how to think about
it, how to feel about it, how to talk about it, is by what they observe in us.
当我们在经历患难时，如果他们看到了愤怒，他们很可能就会这样理解：“苦难是不对的，肯定是什么人错待了我们；是上帝亏待了我们。”他们就会学会这样愤怒的回应方式。另外，他们还会学到一种世界观，即“我不需要经历这个世界的破碎，即使这破碎是所有人都会经历的，我配得更好的”。孩子从我们身上能够捕捉到一种对生活的假定——总之，我不必经历苦难，受苦本身是个意外。
If, when we’re going through a season
of suffering, they observe anger, they’re probably going to absorb a sense of
“this is not right; somebody out there has wronged us; God has wronged
us”–they’re going to absorb that angry response. Also, they’re going to absorb
an attitude about how things work in the world, that I deserve something
different than to experience the brokenness of this world that is universal to
everyone in the world. Kids can absorb a sense of presumption that somehow, I
shouldn’t have to experience this, and surprise about suffering.
作为父母，我们必须说的就是上帝告诉我们：“不要因为苦难而惊奇。苦难对世界上所有人来说都是普遍存在的。”圣经上关于苦难的信息是说，要我们准备好受苦，知晓在受苦中上帝会与我们同在。并且这苦难不是毫无意义的，而是有目的的。如果你是属基督的，你的受苦就并非没有意义，而是有目的的。他能、也将使用这苦难，在你的生命中、在你的世界中实现他美善、荣耀的目的。当你相信这一点，你就会把这样的态度也传递给孩子。
One thing we do have to say as
parents is that the word of God tells us, “don’t be surprised at suffering.
This is common to everyone in the world.” The Bible’s message about suffering
is expect to suffer. Know that God will be with you in this suffering and your
suffering is not meaningless, but purposeful. If you belong to Christ, your
suffering is not meaningless, but purposeful. He can and will use it to
accomplish in your life, and in the world around you, His good and glorious
purposes. As you believe that, you can transmit that to your kids.
T78：如果孩子没有听到这些信息，如果他们没有准备好受苦，会有什么后果？
T78: What are the consequences when
children don’t hear that, when they aren’t prepared for suffering?
NG：当他们经历困苦，他们就会变得冷酷，对上帝怀有苦毒。他们看自己好像受害人，而不是活在这个破碎世界中的基督的门徒。他们不知道活在这个被咒诅的世界中的一部分，就是经历这个世界的苦难。然而，他们应该具有这样的认识——此生不是全部。这难道不是我们的孩子最应该懂得的真理吗？这个世界、电视节目、学校的朋友或是周遭的文化总是告诉我们：今世就是生活的全部；今世你就应当在社会上扬名立万；此时此地，你应该抓住一切你能得到的快乐，你可以成为任何你想成为的人。孩子不应当受这些影响！然而人们却认为，这些信念可以让孩子得以自立自强。
NG: When they do experience
suffering, they become hard and bitter toward God. They can see themselves as
victims, rather than disciples who are living in a broken world, anticipating
that part of living in this world that’s under a curse is experiencing the
suffering of this world. They need to have a sense that this life is not all
there is. Isn’t that something our kids need to understand more than anything
else? They’re not going to get that message from the world, television, their
friends at school, the culture around us—those are always telling us: this is
where life is; this is where you’ve got to make a mark on this world; this is
where you’ve got to grab all the Gusto you can get, in the here and now; you
can be anything you want to be. People think this is some kind of
self-empowerment message for kids.
我认为最好的信息是这样：“你可以相信，上帝会在你里面做工，为了呼召你去完成他的旨意，他会装备你去做他要你做的事、成为他要你成为的人。”这样设定的预期才是以上帝为中心，而不是你必须完成你自己的梦想、必须成为重要的人物。因为如果这些事情没有发生，这些错误的期待就是在为孩子们制造苦毒，且无助于他们接受上帝在他们生命中的主权。
I think a far better message is, “you
can trust that God will work in you, to call you to His purposes, and will
equip you to do and be all that He’s called you to do and be.” That’s a
God-centered view that sets some expectations for your life in this world,
rather than setting this expectation that you’ve got to accomplish your dream;
you’ve got to become somebody. That sets kids up for bitterness when all of
those things don’t happen, instead of acceptance of the sovereignty of God in
their life.
T78：当我们面对苦难，这种痛苦会在我们生命中揭示什么？
T78: When we face suffering, what
does that suffering tend to reveal in our lives?
NG：我的丈夫大卫和我一起在为失去孩子的父母举办周末静修营会。我们在过去的两个周末里一直在静修，而上周末就有一些夫妻表达了他们对上帝的愤怒。我回应的方式是这样：“不管你发怒的对象是上帝还是其他人，或是环境，愤怒其实表达了一种期待——我期待这件事与实际发生的有所不同。如果我对你发怒，那是因为我本来期待你有不一样的行为或言语，而你却做了我不希望你做的，或没有做我期待你做的事情。比如当车子抛锚，或什么人打坏了我们的东西，我们就抓狂，这就反映出，我们希望这事不会发生在我们身上。”
NG: My husband David and I host
weekend retreats for couples who have lost children. We’ve done retreats the
last two weekends, and last weekend, there were a number of couples who were
verbalizing their anger toward God. One way I pushed back on that is to say,
“Whether it’s anger toward God or anger toward any person or situation, anger
reveals an expectation—I expected this would be different. If I’m angry at you,
it’s because I expected you would do or say something different. You have done
something I didn’t want you to do, or you didn’t do something I expected you to
do. Our frustration when the car breaks down or when somebody damages something
of ours, reveals we have an expectation that these things shouldn’t happen to
us.
同样，对于上帝的愤怒绝大多数情况下是基于对上帝是谁、他应当在我们生活中有怎样的作为抱有某种期望。我们认为，既然我们这么聪明、这么属灵地选择了他，他就应该履行他的那份责任，保护我们免于苦难，赐福我们，成全我们在这个世界上想做的事，让我们成为想成为的人。我们有时候其实期待上帝成为我们的仆人，而不是我们要成为他的仆人；期待作为上帝，他就应该赐下我们认为最好的生活，我们认为如此这般才更舒适的生活。当这些成为我们的期待，而苦难却来临，我们当然完全有理由向上帝发怒。这种愤怒说明了上述这些假设和预期。
Similarly, in terms of anger with God, a lot of times that’s based
on having expectations of who God is and what He ought to be doing in our
lives. We think that if we have been so smart, so spiritual, to choose Him,
that now He’s got to do His job and His job should be to protect us from
suffering in this life, and to bless us; to fulfill all these things we want to
do and be in this world. We sometimes have this expectation that God is our servant
rather than we are His servants; expectations that God’s role is to give us the
life that we think will be best for us, that we think that will be more
comfortable. When those are our expectations, and suffering comes into our
life, it makes complete sense that we’d be angry with God. The anger reveals
the assumption and the expectations.
在静修营会上，我曾挑战那些父母去做这样的事：“识别出你的期待是什么，然后问自己一个问题——你的期待有什么根据？”这个问题就会迫使我们首先说出类似这样的话：“我以为上帝会照顾我，我就不用受苦了；我以为，为孩子祷告了那么久，就意味着我不必白发人送黑发人了。”然后，你接着问下一个问题：“你这样的期待是基于什么呢？”以及“你在圣经的什么地方看到了这样的应许呢？”大多数时候，我们会听到在释经方面的错误，或是误解了圣经中我们读到的应许，或是错误地应用了某些经文。一旦你抓住了这个点，你就能处理它了。
What I challenged those couples to do
at our retreat was to say, “Identify what your expectations were, and then ask
the question, on what basis did you expect that?” What that reveals, first of
all, it kind of forces us to say, “I thought God was going to take care of me
so that I wouldn’t have to suffer. I thought all my prayers for my kids were
going to mean that I wouldn’t have to bury one of my children.” Then you go
onto the next question, “On what basis was that your expectation?” Then you
ask, where do you see this promise in the Scripture? What that actually gets at
a lot of times is the errors we make in interpretation; the promises we read in
the Scriptures that we misunderstand, or misapply. Once you get to that point,
you can deal with it.