Suffering forces you to make decisions. When you are in pain, will you trust the Lord in everything? Your decisions shape who you are and who you will become, so stick to the pathways of hope and peace.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and sometimes it is so hard to decide.
For me, it’s nearly every night. And let me explain. When I go to bed at night, it’s quite a rigmarole. For me, bedtime is no easy effort. Ken Tada has to lay me down, then there’s removing the leg bag and taking off my corset. Just putting on my external ventilator is an effort: first, there’s the nose guard, then, Ken puts a Velcro chinstrap on me, then, he fixes a tight mask around my head; gets me hooked up to the ventilator hose. Then he turns on the machine – I must immediately breathe in time with its rhythm, yield to the claustrophobia, the inability to move my position. And before Ken – or my overnight helper – turns out the light, they’ll always ask, “Are you okay? Are you all set?” And right then, I’ve got to make a decision, ’cause I know I’ve got to lie in this position with all this stuff on me; I’ve got to stay in one position until 5 AM. So when I am asked, “Is everything okay, are you all set?” I’ve got a decision to make – a choice. Am I going to relax and trust that God has it all in hand, or am I going to panic and fear the dark hours ahead?
Suffering forces you to make decisions. And if your afflictions are chronic like mine, then you make a thousand little decisions every day. Something suddenly makes your pain worse; you wince, you nearly collapse. So what do you choose to do? Which road are you going to take? The road to panic or the road to peace? Where are you going to go in your faith? Are you going to take the natural path to anxiety and fear? It’s so very easy to go down that path. Or are you going to take the supernatural road of Psalm 62:8 that says, “Trust in the Lord at all times.” Will that be the path you take? Well, when you live with a chronic condition – and when I say chronic, for you it could mean a difficult marriage, long singleness, mental challenges, or, like me, disability and pain – when you live with afflictions that don’t go away, those sufferings drive you to the point where there’s just no “out;” there’s no escape, nothing to hold on to; you’ve got to make naked, raw decisions.
I once read the story of a man who lost his little girl in a tragic accident. He just could not be consoled. He simply could not be comforted. The only place he felt okay was at the cemetery. He would walk around and read the gravestones. He found comfort there because he knew that here was a place where people like him poured out their grief. And so, he made a decision: rather than wallow in the darkness of his grief, he decided to pray for all the many families represented on each gravestone. And before long, a shift occurred. By praying for others, he was able to look outward, rather than inward. It did not turn the tragic death of his daughter into something good, but it did show that some good could come out of it. Because when you are standing in the middle of unthinkable pain, you’ve got to decide. It’s what faith does every day. This man later shared that he did not know what his future would look like, but he did know that his decisions about his suffering would ultimately shape his life.
The lesson here: the decisions that you make when you are suffering – to not wander down roads to despair but to stick to pathways that lead to hope and peace – those decisions will shape the person that you will be. So, wherever you are in your suffering, take hold of Psalm 62. Trust the Lord in everything and you’ll be on the road to hope.
© Joni and Friends