Early in my ministry, books by Yancey Where is God when it hurts, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, In His Image and The Gift of Pain became my teachers and helped shape my views of pain and suffering.
These books emerged, in large part, as a result of Yancey’s friendship with Dr. Paul Brand, a brilliant scientist and physician, who spent much of his career in India working as a medical missionary.
Brand worked for years among some of the most abused and neglected people on the planet, leprosy patients from India’s untouchable caste. And yet, Yancey has frequently said he never met anyone with a deeper sense of gratitude for God’s good world than Dr. Paul Brand.
After returning from a recent trip to India to speak at the medical college in Vellore, India, where Brand worked as a surgeon, Yancey wrote on his blog: I went away mindful of a principle Dr. Paul Brand (who died in 2003) once taught me—he who identified leprosy as a disease of painlessness: “A healthy body is one that feels the pain of the weakest part.” The same principle applies to the Body of Christ. May we never forget those who suffer for the light in a darkening world.
