chronic illness – Oh Lord Help Us

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Circumstances: Allowing God to Use Us through Moments of Hardships

DevotionalsSeptember 9, 2019September 8, 2019

Unexpected circumstances can be crushing, but there is purpose in our hardships. We can allow God to use every moment for His glory.

Life very rarely goes as planned. But it is in those unforeseen hardships, those moments that catch us completely off guard and knock us to our knees, we find God and we find out who He wants us to be. And in those circumstances when we feel we are the most unusable, that is exactly the moment when God chooses to use us.

Maybe you have been there. Maybe you still are. A diagnosis you weren’t expecting. A spouse that has chosen not to honor the vows once professed. The loss of a job. A child who has renounced their faith and their family. All of these circumstances have one thing in common–they strip us of the identity we thought we had and leave us grieving for the life we thought we would have. But the Bible tells us that we are given a new identity in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’
Jeremiah 29:11, NIV

Unexpected Circumstances

I have had a lot of unexpected health issues this past year. In February, I suddenly started having some unexplained severe back and neck issues, along with some scary symptoms that have kept me from being able to do a lot of my regular daily activities.

Initially, I did what I always do when I have a health concern, ignore it and hope that it goes away. I know this may not sound like sage advice, but in all honesty, it seems to have worked for me more times than not. However, this time the problem didn’t go away; it only seemed to intensify. Even now, the doctors have not been able to figure out the root cause.

There is nothing more terrifying than not knowing what is wrong or if it will ever improve. Especially if you are an overthinker. My life was altered drastically overnight, and I felt imprisoned by the things I could no longer do.

Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect–on any front–and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.
Fred Rogers, The World According to Mr. Rogers

But in all the “not doing”, there were also things that I was now able To Do that normally would have taken a backseat. While there were plenty of losses, there were just as many gains.

The Gift of Humility

In Kyle Idleman’s book, The End of Me, he says, “I’ve come to realize that if me gets his way, I’ll miss out on the real life I’m meant to live. The life in which I love others and make a difference in the world.”

Not being able to do what I wanted forced me to follow the path God had laid out for me.

What if getting the one thing you wanted would keep you from the blessings God has planned for you?

What if it would keep you from making a difference in someone else’s life?

God does not waste our pain. He uses every bit of our circumstances for His glory.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28, NIV

The Gift of Empathy

I have found that I am much more capable of understanding someone else’s pain when I have personally experienced it. It is so much easier to give someone else grace when I myself have needed it. Not only have I had more time this year to help, but my eyes and my heart have been opened to the needs surrounding me. Since I am not able to do as much physically, God led me to help in other ways.

I started writing inmates as part of a prison ministry, and one of the ladies began a Bible study in the prison with the study I sent her. I have connected more with my elderly neighbors. And I have had time to sit on the phone with friends and just listen. Sometimes you may have nothing else to offer someone besides your support and your prayers, but there is no act of kindness that is too small.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Matthew 5:7, NIV

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So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 7:12, NIV

The Gift of Community

I have always had a difficult time asking for help. I don’t know why that is. Maybe I subconsciously equate it with being lazy or weak. Maybe it’s because I have a hard time trusting others. Or maybe it’s because I find it terrifying to relinquish control. Most likely, it’s a little bit of all three.

Whatever the underlying reason, this has always been one of my weaknesses. But what do you do when there are things you just can’t do yourself? Well, you learn pretty quickly to swallow your pride and ask for help. And you learn to trust in the faithfulness of God and the kindness of others. We all fall down sometimes, that is why God surrounds us with a community of fellow believers to help lift us back up.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10,12, NIV

The Gift of Perseverance

The most important lesson I learned is to just KEEP GOING. In the powerful words of Martin Luther King Jr., “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

I only had two options. I could either focus on what I was no longer able to do and just give up on life or I could focus on what I could do and live my life to its fullest potential.

Like Lot’s wife, I could gaze longingly at the life I once had, only to turn into a pillar of salt, or I could keep my focus on the Promised Land ahead. I was encouraged by the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s song, Anthem.

Ring the Bells That Still Can Ring
Forget Your Perfect Offering
There Is a Crack In Everything
That’s How the Light Gets In.
Leonard Cohen, Anthem

Ring the Bells

That soon became my mantra. Whenever I got frustrated about something I couldn’t do, I reminded myself, “Ring the Bells That Still Can Ring”. I listed all the ways God was using me where He couldn’t before. Yes, my life is different than it used to be, but not all change is bad.

Joni Eareckson Tada was paralyzed after a diving accident, yet she has become a positive and influential Christian writer and speaker. God has used her circumstances to encourage others with similar disabilities.
Thomas Chisholm had planned to be a preacher in a small town in Kentucky, but when sickness kept him from his plans, he spread the gospel in another way. He wrote over 1,200 poems, many now hymns. One of his more popular hymns, Great is Thy Faithfulness, is still sung all around the world today.
Sheila Walsh’s father committed suicide and she herself had a very public battle with anxiety. Through her writing, speaking engagements and television programs, she has used her personal experiences to help end the stigma surrounding mental illness.

If our lives did not need to be redeemed, would it be possible to have as deep of a relationship with our Redeemer? There is a crack in everything. That is how the Light gets in.

What if you have come to current circumstances for such a time as this? What if your pain has brought you to your purpose?

It is in those unforeseen hardships, those moments that catch us completely off guard and knock us to our knees, we find God and we find out who He wants us to be. Click To Tweet

Annie Spratt

weakness, strength, Oh Lord Help Us, Christian, mentoring, scripture, ministry

Weakness: A Curse For Humanity or a Blessing From God?

Devotionals, Stay SaneAugust 7, 2018January 13, 2019

Weakness is hidden in our culture. It conjures up negative images. Chronic, and mental illness can feel like a curse, leaving us drained and tired of feeling weak.

The first time I heard the word weak used in a disapproving way was in reference to my mom when I was 13 or 14. Dad had called my older brother and me into the kitchen for a “talk,” which we can all remember usually meant bad news – either one of us was in trouble or someone had died! This time, however, dad told us he was taking mom to a local mental health hospital because he didn’t know ‘what else to do with her.’

Weak is a 4-Letter Word

During my lifetime, Mom had had many occasions of sickness when she couldn’t get out of bed, but when she was up and at it, Mom was a tiger. Mom ruled with an iron fist; nobody messed with Mom! Consequently, my young teen mind was shocked. I remember clearly saying to him, “But Dad, she’s so strong!” My 16 year-old brother scoffed at me as my dad said with a tone of weariness and disgust, “Dodie, your mom is weak…and she needs help.”

Note to self: Weakness is bad.

No Room For The Weak

Mental illness was a shameful, embarrassing thing in my parent’s generation. To a degree, despite all the publicity and “awareness,” people battling mental illness today continue to be treated as less-than, dismissed, and weak. Sadly, even in the church, Christians seldom disclose their struggle with mental illness or chronic illness, for that matter. As author and life coach Amy Simpson stated:

Some have actually shared their pain or their ongoing battle with a loved one’s illness. And now people keep their distance. No one asks, “How are you doing?” because they’re afraid to hear the answer. Maybe they experience the biting dismissal of trite sayings or admonitions to “just have more faith” or “pray harder.”

Why speak up when they are accused of being weak in faith? But, aren’t we admonished to be “strong in the Lord and the strength of His might?” (Ephesians 6:10, NAS). ‘Victory in Jesus,’ and all that? I could fill volumes with the sermons and songs I’ve heard concerning us having strength in the Lord. And I understand the need for encouragement to persevere in the dark hours – heck, even daily; believe me, I do.

However, what are we to do with our weakness, especially if we can’t share it with our fellow believers?

All of my older teen years and adult life I have hated, loathed weakness in me. Of course, unconsciously, weakness reminded me of my mother, her addictions and the way she manipulated us with her “illnesses.” Weakness ‘hooked’ me, as a therapist would say. I fought and raged against it, kicked back, pushed away from it. And my resistance was worse after being diagnosed with a chronic illness, when my own body worked against me. I felt betrayed!

But what am I to make of Hebrews 4:15-16?

Jesus Was Weak, Too?!

…Because we don’t have a high priest who can’t sympathize with our weaknesses but instead one who was tempted in every way that we are, except without sin. Finally, let’s draw near to the throne of favor with confidence so that we can receive mercy and find grace when we need help.

Hebrews 4:15-16, CEB

Right, right, Jesus was weak for a while, but He was God…

NO. No ‘buts.’

Brennan Manning implored that Christians “enter into the seriousness of this revelation, of the conjunction between priesthood [of the believer] and weakness…” in Souvenirs of Solitude.

How paradoxical this mystery is: The strength of the priesthood lies precisely in and through the weakness of our humanity. Why? For two reasons, I think. Weakness relates us profoundly to the people we serve; it allows us to feel with them the human condition, the human struggle and darkness and anguish that call out for salvation. Further, weakness relates us profoundly and apostolically to God because it provides the arena in which His power can move and reveal itself; His power is made manifest in weakness.

Weakness Invites God’s Strength

So, truly the question is: do I want His power manifested in me in order to serve others with humility? Or do I simply want my own paltry efforts, which continually frustrate and fail me? I can trade my feeble efforts in for the awesome power of God by surrendering my weaknesses to Him and trust Him to use them for His glory. It seems like an easy choice, but some days the old mental tapes and pride wage a mighty battle.

I wonder, sometimes, how long Paul pleaded with God to remove his ‘thorn in the flesh’. We are told he asked three times, but how long between each request? Was Paul as stubborn as I am? In light of eternity, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Paul heard and obeyed the answer from God:

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10, NKJV

I admit, I’m still learning to take pleasure in infirmities, reproaches and needs. At least I’m not kicking and screaming as much…and I’m thanking my Father more for this strange paradox of weakness leading to strength…

His strength perfected in weakness…may it be so, Lord Jesus.

I can trade my feeble efforts in for the awesome power of God by surrendering my weaknesses to Him and trust Him to use them for His glory. Click To Tweet

Karina Vorozheeva

life, unplanned, choose, Oh Lord Help Us, Christian, women, ministry

Life: Four Keys to Handle the Life We Didn’t Plan On

Devotionals, Stay SaneMay 29, 2018June 27, 2019

Life is full of unplanned detours and painful pieces. So, how do we handle life when it doesn’t turn out the way we planned?

Remember the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump?” Among the many quotables, Gump uttered the famous line: “Momma said life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” Those words could perhaps be the subject matter of a college exit course, especially for the students who think they have their lives mapped out…

Unplanned Detours…

My husband and I attended a birthday party for the 32-year-old, handicapped daughter of some long-time friends of ours. This child came out of the womb with a heart condition, but mentally sound. However, due to complications and lack of oxygen during heart surgery days later, her brain was then affected. She is the youngest of three. Our friends did not have taking care of a multiple-handicapped child in their life plan, but you know what? They adjusted. They sacrificed, worked extra hours and extra years. I’ve never heard one complaint from their lips. Their other 2 children, and now their sons-in-law and grandchildren love her deeply. Life without her can’t be imagined, despite the hardship. And one day, when mom and dad are gone, one of those sisters will take over her care.

A reunion was held at the church where Gary and I grew up and raised our children. We saw many old friends, some who have experienced great hardships since we have last seen them. One woman had been in a motorcycle accident and lost her leg two years ago, but stood before me thanking God that her life was spared. Another friend who had dated my brother-in-law decades ago is now running a business while taking care of a husband and a grandmother who both have dementia!

I have a chronic medical condition. Symptoms began not long after I started a career/ministry I loved – definitely not in my plans. For a while after I was diagnosed, I stopped participating in life, but not completely because of my illness. I was more limited by the meaning I had assigned to the illness and the power I gave the meaning.

Painful Pieces…

The reality of life is this – it isn’t only to be lived by well people, or people who have their lives going as planned, or the super intelligent or the super spiritual.

In the early stages of my illness, (and sometimes during tough seasons!) I did not choose life in whatever form God chose to give it. I wanted to pick and choose the life I wanted.

Rachel Remen, M.D. said in her beautiful book, Kitchen Table Wisdom:

When I accepted certain parts of life and denied and ignored the rest, I could only see my life a piece at a time – the happiness of a success or a time of celebration, or the ugliness and pain of a loss or a failure I was trying hard to put behind me out of sight…We are always putting the pieces together without knowing the picture ahead of time. I have been with many people in times of profound loss and grief when an unsuspected meaning begins to emerge from the fragments of their lives. Over time, this meaning has proven itself to be durable and trustworthy, even transformative. It is a kind of strength that never comes to those who deny their pain.

Life involves many types of pain; you don’t have to have many years under your belt to know this. It is in our flesh-nature to avoid/ignore pain, to hide it from others when we can, or to rage against it as unfair, but we are sojourners and exiles in this world (1 Peter 2:11). Paul warned us in 2 Corinthians that things would become wearisome here.

For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling... For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened – not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

2 Corinthians 5:2-4, ESV

Choose Life…

When God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30:11-19, to “choose life,” do you think they had been listening for the previous two chapters? I ask because, in my opinion, God spelled it out very clearly what would happen if they walked with Him and obeyed Him, or what the consequences would be if they didn’t. However, it doesn’t seem as though they were prepared for the latter years of trials.

Despite how clearly pain and trials are delineated in Scripture, I fear that many Christians today are not well prepared for the Life to which they are called, either. Hardships, pain, and trials arrive and some become shell-shocked and believe God has thrown them overboard. However, Jesus succinctly warned in John 16:33 (ESV): I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

His disciples were clear on this point; in 2 Timothy 2:3, Paul invites Timothy to join him in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Suffering was a given.

Keys to Accepting…

I believe the keys to accepting the life God gives us each day is hidden in the Deuteronomy 30:11-20 passage. God said that it isn’t too mysterious for you, nor is it far off…but the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it (v. 11).

I love that – I can hear Him saying, “People! This isn’t rocket science!”

…I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days…

Deuteronomy 30:19-20, NKJV

The Keys…

Choose life
Love the Lord your God
Obey His voice
Cling to Him

Don’t wait for a new life. Live this one boldly as you cling to Him.

The reality of life is this - it isn't only to be lived by well people, or people who have their lives going as planned, or the super intelligent or the super spiritual. Click To Tweet

Pain: Cast Aside Blame and See the Purpose of Suffering and Sacrifice

Devotionals, Stay SaneMarch 11, 2018June 27, 2019

Life is full of pain, leaving us wanting to blame something or someone for our suffering. Can there be purpose behind our struggles and sacrifices?

If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both. This is the problem of pain, in its simplest form.

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Eleven years ago last fall, my body began to feel like a traitorous enemy. What at first felt like aches and pains from a virus became nightly leg and feet pain that was nearly unbearable and robbed me of sleep. I was a hospital chaplain, on my feet most of the day, so I assumed that I simply needed to wear more supportive shoes instead of my usual stylish choices. However, nothing seemed to alleviate the pain that gradually began to spread throughout my body. Blinding migraines hit the following spring. By June, I had missed so many days of work that, weeping, I tendered my resignation.

Despite having classic symptoms, it still took eight months and numerous doctor visits to receive a diagnosis other than it being ‘all in my head’ or ‘depression.’ I had fibromyalgia. At the time, there weren’t many options other than pain meds, which I didn’t want because addiction runs strong in my family of origin.

There were many dark days to follow, months searching for treatments or cures, (there aren’t any), and numerous seasons questioning why, why, why. An understanding doctor, a fibromyalgia clinic in Atlanta, a husband who would stop at nothing to see me receive whatever I needed, and a patient, loving Father saw me through the next two years. Although I don’t know a day without pain somewhere in my body, by the grace of God, it isn’t the focus of my life.

A verse from a song by NEEDTOBREATHE always arrests me when I hear it because I now see pain in a different light, too:

Don’t let the night become the day
Don’t take the darkness to the grave
I know pain is just a place
The will has been broken
Don’t let the fear become the hate
Don’t take the sadness to the grave
I know the fight is on the way
When the sides have been chosen

Pain

Pain, the gift nobody wants, as Paul Brand wrote with Philip Yancey in their classic 1993 book (cleverly titled, Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants). In it, Brand described the staggering lessons he had gleaned from his work with leprosy patients, many of whom had lost the ability to feel any pain at all. One might think that was a good thing, yet Brand reported that the lepers would come to the clinic with festering, infected burns or injuries. Why had they waited so long? They could not feel the pain. Limbs had to be removed due to untreated, un-felt injuries. “The mind responded to these effects of painlessness with a feeling that could only be called suffering,” Brand wrote.

It seems pain and suffering often arrive at the same time. Many of us have suffered helplessly as we watched a loved one die slowly, painfully from a terminal disease such as cancer. Or perhaps like me, you deal with pain on a daily basis. Sometimes we question why. When I was a hospital chaplain, I can’t count the number of times I was asked why God allowed “this to happen” or allowed their loved one to suffer so much. There is an important choice to be made here – we can continue to seek God’s face in the pain or we can let the anger and sadness take us to places of bitter darkness.

Blame

God is an easy target on which to focus blame. After all, He’s in charge of everything. It shouldn’t matter if I’m an unbeliever, or I’ve been blatantly unfaithful. God is LOVE, isn’t He? Even more so if I’m a super-Christian, (aka – overcommitted and uber busy with church activities). Isn’t God supposed to step up when I am in pain and deliver me immediately?

I can’t say that has ever been my experience…has it ever been yours? Have you seen that born out in Scripture? Why, then, do we continue to question the existence of pain and suffering in our lives or in the world?

Suffering

As written in Christianity Today: Stanley Hauerwas, [American theologian and ethicist], famously said, “The great enemy of the church today is not atheism but sentimentality.” In his view, there’s no deeper sentimentality than the presumption that we (or our children) can hold convictions without suffering for them. To have true convictions is to love something bigger than the self, and we cannot love God or others without suffering…holding to our convictions might mean suffering unto death.

The entire Bible is very clear about the inevitability of pain in life. There is even a man in I Chronicles 4:9 whose name means pain! (All childbirth is painful, but wow! That’s harsh!) Interesting side note, being named Pain (or Jabez) didn’t scar him for life. In fact, “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers…” Is it possible pain has a positive purpose?

If you have ever read Hebrews 11 in its entirety, you know that it contains many who died in the faith, not having received the promises…(v13, NKJV). Verses 35-40 describe types of suffering and trials which men and women of faith endured because they knew that God had provided something better for us (v40, NKJV). These were people of whom the world was not worthy, (v 38, NKJV), yet we shudder to contemplate modeling our lives after them. Their suffering seems too monumental.

Sacrifice

And of course, there is the example of Jesus, telling us boldly in John 15 that love, not emotional, flighty, what’s-in-it-for-me “love,” but genuine love, sacrificial love, love that forgets about my wants and needs in order to meet my husband’s or my child’s or neighbor’s needs when necessary, the kind that dies to self over and over and over in order to display the love of Jesus…that kind of love is His commandment. It’s not a suggestion and He isn’t telling us to do something He hasn’t done or isn’t doing.

Love lays down its life.

Jesus simply commanded His disciples to love others in the same way He had been loving them, even as He was moving inexorably toward the cross. Nothing was going to stop Him, no torture, pain, suffering or betrayal of friends; He knew what was required for our redemption.

Nothing was going to stop Him, no torture, pain, suffering or betrayal of friends; He knew what was required for our redemption. Click To Tweet

Love laid down His life.

It’s usually painful – loving, that is…and life, too. Look no farther than the evening news for proof of the latter and at the last argument, you had with your spouse or close friend for the former. But imagine this world – or your life – without a trace of His love. It’s unimaginable, isn’t it?

The older I get the more I realize that I have only touched the hem of His garment where His love is concerned.

He freely gave it. He freely died.

And He commanded us to do likewise.

If you have found this inspiring, share the encouragement…

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