I was sitting with someone who was suffering with a medical condition that rendered them unable to control their body, often having seizures that made it unable to control their bladder and bowels. It’s an intensely humiliating thing to live in fear that one will have a seizure in public, which means that anxiety, depression, and isolation can quickly become the tormenting bullies within one’s mind and one’s every day existence. In addition to this, the physical disabilities resulted in an inability to work and provide for their family. With financial pressures causing this person’s physical world to cave all around them, we sat together in the silence with tears in our eyes. Tears often fill the bottom crest of my eyes as I sit with those who suffer in such breath-taking ways. I use “breath-taking” in a new way within this context. At some point, the person with whom I’m sitting takes a deep, labored, almost stuttering inhalation, which echoes the pain and the struggle of suffering within their heart and their physical lungs to the external world in which they are attempting to survive.
As we continued to talk, this particular person discussed the possibility that they did something in a past life or that maybe God was punishing them for being thoughtless and insensitive in his 20’s, concepts by the way, with which I did not agree; however, I could see their process of rationalizing in their current state. We talked about their attempt and all peoples’ attempt to “find a reason” for their suffering. And often, we blame ourselves because we are the most easily accessible person to blame. We also typically have this concept that if we continually punish ourselves, it somehow pays the atonement for our wrong doings – the wrong doings that must be the reasons for which we are currently suffering. Oh, it’s all so tormenting and exhausting! My heart went out to them. They continued to talk about God and the Bible so I asked if they were familiar with John 9 – the story about Jesus healing a man born blind. In this story, Jesus’ disciples asked Him what this man or his parents did that was so bad that caused him to be punished with blindness. I love what Jesus says, however. Jesus states that it was not that this man sinned or his parents sinned, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3).
This conversation created some space for them to consider some new possibilities in regard to their current sufferings. And, together, we discussed that one does not get to choose the ways in which the works of God might be displayed in one’s life – rather, only whether we will join Him in the process.
If you are suffering in some way today, I invite you to seek God for His will and His blessings. I invite you to join me on a journey of healing in my book, Patient in Affliction Faithful in Prayer. May the message minister to you in your time of need and may you seek the Throne of Grace to find help and grace to breathe, less belabored, freer with more hope in the midst of all that which you cannot control, and even more importantly in the midst of that which you can.
Love, Kristina
As we continued to talk, this particular person discussed the possibility that they did something in a past life or that maybe God was punishing them for being thoughtless and insensitive in his 20’s, concepts by the way, with which I did not agree; however, I could see their process of rationalizing in their current state. We talked about their attempt and all peoples’ attempt to “find a reason” for their suffering. And often, we blame ourselves because we are the most easily accessible person to blame. We also typically have this concept that if we continually punish ourselves, it somehow pays the atonement for our wrong doings – the wrong doings that must be the reasons for which we are currently suffering. Oh, it’s all so tormenting and exhausting! My heart went out to them. They continued to talk about God and the Bible so I asked if they were familiar with John 9 – the story about Jesus healing a man born blind. In this story, Jesus’ disciples asked Him what this man or his parents did that was so bad that caused him to be punished with blindness. I love what Jesus says, however. Jesus states that it was not that this man sinned or his parents sinned, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3).
This conversation created some space for them to consider some new possibilities in regard to their current sufferings. And, together, we discussed that one does not get to choose the ways in which the works of God might be displayed in one’s life – rather, only whether we will join Him in the process.
If you are suffering in some way today, I invite you to seek God for His will and His blessings. I invite you to join me on a journey of healing in my book, Patient in Affliction Faithful in Prayer. May the message minister to you in your time of need and may you seek the Throne of Grace to find help and grace to breathe, less belabored, freer with more hope in the midst of all that which you cannot control, and even more importantly in the midst of that which you can.
Love, Kristina