Hi, I’m Joni, and I’ve got a special friend I want you to meet today.
Looking at Linda Barrick, you’d never guess she’s gone through so much tragedy. This beautiful mother of two young teenagers was left with plenty of scars – physical ones – from a terrible automobile accident in which she nearly died. And she’s got quite a story to tell…
JONI: Linda, I have been sitting in a wheelchair for a long time and I have great empathy for anyone else who has had to be in a wheelchair for any length of time and, of course, after that terrible automobile accident you had many injuries which landed you in a wheelchair. Now, tell us what you gleaned from that time.
LINDA: Well, it made me appreciate a lot of the things that I had taken for granted: the ability to walk and run and do things on my own. My whole left side was crushed after the automobile accident and I couldn’t care for myself. I couldn’t bathe; I had 20 different friends that would come and help. They took turns to bathe me and take care of me and dress me. They would load up the wheelchair in their car and we would go every day to see my daughter, who was also injured, at a hospital an hour and a half away and somewhere in the midst of all of that I knew God’s Word and I had studied God’s Word and ever since I was a child I loved the Lord with all my heart, but I just became dead inside. Have you ever felt dead inside – where I would hear a praise song and I wouldn’t even feel anymore. One day I just started weeping and I told the Lord, “What is wrong with me?” and I just confessed just how I had been feeling and the Lord started speaking to my heart and he said, “Linda, you are obsessed with trying to heal your daughter and trying to help your family and I don’t want you to be obsessed with anything else but me. I want to be your number one obsession and you have to let go and you have to trust me.” And God reminded me that I have to remember in the darkness what God had taught me in the light. And one of those things that God had taught me was every morning when I would make coffee – because I drink coffee every day – I would bow and surrender my day to the Lord and I would ask God to empty me of all that was me and fill me with his power. I wanted to walk in the power of his Holy Spirit that day, and that was something I couldn’t do any more in the wheelchair. I had not been able to physically bow and kneel and I was forgetting to go to God every morning and ask him for the strength that I needed that day and God reminded me it doesn’t matter if you are in a wheelchair; it doesn’t matter if you just bow your head or lay across your bed, you can bow and surrender to me every day. I promised the Lord when I got out of that wheelchair I would never again take for granted the ability to be able to bow on my knees before him.
JONI: Hmm! And I think of the day that is coming for us both when I get out of my wheelchair and I’ll be able to drop on grateful, glorified knees and bow for that first time. You are my inspiration to keep at it until that glorious day when we’ll be with our Savior.
Friend, if you’re like me, you find her story a huge blessing! But some of you listening might still be stuck – like Linda (whose car was hit by that drunk driver), you may still be struggling with doubts or resentment, wondering why tragedy had to strike you? Well, if you’d like to get on a path toward Linda’s kind of perspective, I want to send you a wonderful little booklet by my friend, Dave Powlison, called “Why Me?” This special little booklet takes a close look at the secret treasures hidden in Psalm 10 and it will be such a comfort to you if you’re going through a difficult time. So come on over to joniandfriends.org and ask for your copy of “Why Me?” today. And while you’re there, enjoy the photo I’ve posted of Linda and me… she’s a woman who has learned to trust God in the toughest of times!
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
© Joni and Friends