Four years ago at about exactly this time in the afternoon, four precious girls from Broughton were in a terrible car wreck. Their car rolled over several times, three of the four were thrown from the car, and two of them sustained horrific injuries. Tessa was airlifted to Chapel Hill for multiple broken bones, and Janie was airlifted to Greenville with a life-threatening brain injury.
It was a day much like today: warm and sunny, school just about to start, and all the stress, busyness and excitement that comes from summer ending and school, fall, and all those activities ramping up. This time of year always feels like being shot out of cannon (which, thankfully, I have never experienced). It's going from "Ahhh, summer, beach, mountains, barefoot, reading in the sun, staying up later, no homework, no worries...to AWWWWWW! We're about to go careening down the precipice of the rollercoaster and we can't stop! Heeeelp!
Suffice it to say, we were not anticipating a stop-in-your-tracks, forget everything else, life-changing event to occur that sultry August day. But isn't that just life? You never know what's around the corner--good or bad--and that's a blessing. If we knew the future, we'd just dread it, wringing our hands in despair, certain that we simply cannot survive whatever it is.
But we can and we will, because the Lord's already there. He's the One who sustains and strengthens us through it all. As I read in today's Daily Light, "When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then You knew my path." (Ps.142:3) Oh what peace that should give us--He knows. He's there. He's got it. And He's got us tightly, lovingly, and eternally in His nail-scarred hands. We may feel overwhelmed, but the Lord never is. In fact that's when He does His very best work in our lives. Early this morning, I reread some of my blogs from those first days after the wreck, and I simply wept and worshipped our awesome, loving Lord. How well I remember that little ICU room where God's presence was so close, so dear, so all sustaining in those hard, frightening, and often dark days. It has made me love Jesus more dearly and trust Him more completely.
As David Jeremiah has said, "Our Lord's past performance of faithfulness is an ever-present comfort during times of distress. One of the reasons God allows trials is to strengthen our faith for the future. Don't waste yesterday's lessons by forgetting the deliverance of God. The same God who delivered you from the lion and the bear [based on I Samuel where as David faced Goliath, He remembered God helping him overcome the wild animals] will give you victory and grace today and tomorrow." Amen!
So Lord, today, we remember and rejoice that in Your great mercy, You saved these four girls. Thank You for healing them. Thank You for healing Tessa of her many broken bones, and thank You for waking Janie from her coma and bringing her back to us. Thank You for all the incredible good You brought out of their accident and their injuries. Thank You that souls were saved as a result of what those girls endured. Thank You that You always bring ultimate good out of every single thing--even the hard, dark, mystifying places in our lives. (Rom.8:28) Thank You that You never ever waste our suffering. And thank You that You are always with us--right there in the trenches of sorrow and pain--so that we are never forsaken, never alone, never without Your love, grace, and hope.
For whoever happens to be reading this right now, I don't know what kind of season of suffering you might be entering, enduring, or exiting, but suffering happens to every one of us. None of us gets a free pass on pain and sorrow. I pray that these words might encourage you to trust the unseen God and know that He is working and moving even when you can't see or feel Him. He's there. He's with you. He will pull you through. He will teach you treasures in the darkness (Isa.45:3) that will bring you wisdom and deep joy you cannot imagine. And one day--maybe in this life, maybe not till eternity--you will fully see, truly understand, and extravagantly rejoice in all that He allowed you to endure and all the ways that He used it in your life and in the lives of others for beautiful good and for eternal glory.
Janie shared these verses with us this morning that she read in this day's devotion: "O Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You have healed me. O Lord, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit." (Ps.30:2-3) Thank You, Lord, that that is what You did...and that is what You do. You are the God who raises, resurrects, restores, and redeems. We praise You and thank You. Do it again in our lives and in this world, Lord. To God be the glory.
A giant p.s.--No need to read the following, but if anyone is interested in reading again what was going on in those very first hours in the hospital four years ago, here it is below. Sometimes it's good, as Stephen Curtis Chapman sings, "to remember the chains...and remember the chains are gone." The Lord Jesus is still--and always will be--in the chain-breaking business. Praise Him! Four years ago--
It is 1:00 in the morning, and my daughter and I wage war. She lies in her hospital bed, impossibly beautiful and serene, while hooked up to all kinds of wires and machines that aid her in her fight, while her mama fights fear with faith, despair with God's promises. His Word becomes to me a supernatural weapon of power and strength and solace that at various moments in our battle comes alive, piercing the darkness with Truth. And so we fight.
But we do not fight alone.
For we fight with an army beside us, behind us, before us. Even at this moment, the army of the body of Christ fights with us and for us. Praying when we have no words or strength left. Praying for my daughter's battle against bleeding and swelling in the brain. Praying for our peace. Praying for God's supernatural healing. Praying for His peace, His enabling, His will, His love, His Light in our darkness. And we feel their prayers. Almost palpable, we feel their precious prayers, many through tears, filling us with His presence and perseverance and patience in this long, hard struggle. We feel the prayers of my daughter's high school friends, so young, so uncertain, and yet so fervent in the only way they know to fight for their friend. And the prayers of our dear friends and family and family of faith--O how they fill us with determination when we are desperate and with faith when fear assaults. They are our Aaron and Hur, holding up our arms so that we can continue to wage this war.
Thank You thank You thank You, Father, for this body of Christ. Never before have I so experienced the incredible gift and power and love of Your body of believers who just seem to overflow with Your grace in our hour of greatest need.
But most of all, as I look out the window in our darkened room and see the glowing moon, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Lion of Judah fights for us in this room. I have felt His presence and power in this tiny cubicle of flashing lights and beeping sounds of monitors. He is here right now, undergirding, filling, fighting, calming, loving, breathing His Life and Light and Love. No, in the darkness of this night, my daughter and I, we are not alone, for He is with us and for us and around us and in us.
O how I thank Him. O how I love Him. For He knows what it is to fight against death and despair, against fear and pain. He fought it at the cross and won. And so, too, one day we all will win. We may lose a war or two along the way, but our ultimate victory is assured. And so we fight on.
We do not know how or when our war will end. The way ahead is long and hard and uncertain. But we do not fight alone. With the prayers and love of the body of Christ, with the powerful presence of our Savior, the Lion of Judah, we will continue to wage war, and, by the grace of God, we will not give up or give in. Fighting fear with faith. Fighting worry with the Word. Fighting swelling and brain injury with supernatural prayer and belief.
And even as we wage our war, we pray for and with our friends who fight their own battles--whether against disease or doubt or despair. For my daughter's dear friends hurt in the same car accident--O Father, help and heal them and use this all for glory in their lives and in the lives of a watching world. For friends battling cancer or struggling with addictions or mental illness--Lord, we don't know all that others are facing, but You do, and You are with them. Be their mighty Lion of Judah. Be the Light in their darkness. Be their All in All and fight for them.
The last 30 hours have been a blur of battle for us. But in the midst of it all, God has flooded my heart with His Word from the gospel of John. When fear overwhelms us, He is our Peace. He is our Living Water. He is our Good Shepherd. He is our Light. He is our Bread of Life. He is our Door. He is our Resurrection and the Life.
Last night, in the darkness, as my husband and I stood by our daughter's bed, I almost desperately tried to talk to her, encourage her, pray for her, and my dear husband quietly reminded me: "The Lord is keeping her company. She is not alone." And suddenly I remembered, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5) "Jesus, " I silently prayed, "thank You for keeping her company. Be her Light in her darkness."
And He was... and He is. And He is mine as well. In this darkness, His Light shines and shines.
And so my daughter and I, on this quiet dark night, we fight on. But not alone. Never alone. Thank You Jesus. I think I can hear You roar.
To God, our Savior, our Lion of Judah, be all the glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment