Welcome to Joni and Friends. I’m your host Joni Eareckson Tada.
My friend, Gloria, collapsed into a heartbreaking anguish when she received the prognosis of her daughter’s illness. Her daughter, little Laura, had already suffered enough from the degenerative nerve disease she had been born with, but now the doctor’s forecast included more complications, more suffering… The straw that snapped was learning of Laura’s impending death.
Like any mother, Gloria desperately wished she could take away her daughter’s pain. She bounced around emotionally, vacillating from sorrow to anger. I mean Gloria had no problem with the sovereignty of God – she knew He was exactly the one to blame. She would leave her daughter’s bedside at night, close the door to her own bedroom, and collapse on her bed and cry out, “God, it’s not right! You’ve never had to watch one of your children die!”
That is when she clasped her hand over her mouth. She almost hyperventilated she told me. In her innermost being, she felt the Spirit of God whisper to her, “I most certainly did watch my child die, my one and only Son.” Gloria told me that she spent that night wondering how and to what extent the Father anguished over that horrible death of His only child… His perfect child… His son. She surmised that God probably wished He could have taken away the pain of His Son, yet God endured that pain because He so loved Gloria. He so loved Gloria and Laura and the rest of the world.
And that fact alone literally changed this mother. She decided she could bear up under the pain of her daughter’s suffering and the looming death because God bore the pain of His Son’s suffering and death. And that meant that God's strength and empathy was hand-tailored and hand-fashioned just for her… more than enough strength for her and for Laura. Gloria could sigh with relief that God was by her side in the most amazing parent-support group ever devised!
Actually, that parent-support group between Gloria and her God spread beyond her family. The whole church ended up wrapping its arms around her family and in so doing the congregation gained a fresh new appreciation for God the Father who so loved the world that He gave His Son.
Friend, there is not a pain you endure that God hasn’t already been touched by it and overcome it. There’s not a sting of sorrow you experience that the Man of Sorrow acquainted with grief has not first experienced it. You may be a parent anguishing over your child’s disability today… please know that God was once a parent, too. His child is precious to Him, also. And God gave His child on your behalf so that you might have the power and the grace and the strength to endure the absolute unendurable all because God gave His Son!
I am so grateful to God that I can share these words of encouragement with you. And you don’t even have to have a disability. That’s why we call our ministry Joni and Friends. It’s all about friends spending time together and uplifting one another through prayer and giving insights on the word of God that inspire and refresh. Want to learn more? Well, you can always visit us at joniandfriends.org for more Christian encouragement or if you know someone with a disability don’t forget to send them our way at joniandfriends.org. Until next time I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and you are listening to Joni and Friends.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
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Agoura Hills, CA 93176
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