When Suffering Seems Bizarre
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and sometimes, life is bizarre.
A case in point is my friend Alice. She recently broke her neck in a car accident. But this is the bizarre part: It happened when they were on a long drive in their SUV, and she and her husband were in the front seat, their two boys were in the back. Anyway, during the six-hour drive, one of her sons asked Alice if he could have a drink out of the cooler in the back. So, Alice unbuckled her seatbelt, carefully leaned over the seat, and while she balanced herself, she undid the lid to the cooler to get that soda for her son. But just then, at that instant, a car pulled out in front of them, her husband suddenly swerved the wheel, the two vehicles hit hard and Alice went flying against the front dash and the window of the SUV. She hit her neck and became paralyzed immediately. Everyone else was okay, but Alice came out of it a quadriplegic. And sadly, the one moment on their six–hour drive on a long, straight highway, that moment when she unbuckled her seatbelt, that happened to be the moment the accident happened.
You know, often we amble on along in life, and then – bam! – get hit with suffering. Life from then on doesn’t make sense; it’s full of insecurities. And for Alice, suffering has not only rocked her boat, it’s capsized it. Because this was so odd the way this injury happened, that she needs assurance that her world is not splitting apart at the seams. She needs to know that she isn’t going to fizzle into a zillion atomic particles and go spinning off into space. Alice needs reassurance that her world is under God’s sovereign, kind, sweet, precious hand. She needs to see God is at the center of this awful tragedy and I tell you what, that’s what I’m praying. I want Alice to see that God is the center of her suffering and I want her to say that God is to her Abba, her Father, her Daddy, personal, compassionate. That’s my cry in prayer on her behalf.
Now, I don’t know if your suffering is as strange and bizarre as Alice’s car accident. I don’t know if you have experienced things like she recently did – I mean that twisted, strange moment on a six-hour drive when everything went awry. But here’s the thing. If you are hurting I want you to know that God, just like a good Abba, just like a good father, a good daddy just doesn’t give advice to you or to Alice, no, He gives Himself. He becomes the comforter to the one who is struggling. He becomes the father to the orphan (it says in Psalm 10). He becomes the bridegroom to the single person (it says in Isaiah 62). He becomes the healer to the sick (like it says in Exodus 15). He’s the wonderful counselor to the confused and depressed (just as it says of Him in Isaiah 62). God is our hope. He is our shield. And He’s even Alice’s very great reward in the middle of this bizarre, twisted suffering.
This is what you do when someone you love is in anguish; you respond to their pleas by giving them yourself. Like God, if you are the one at the center of the universe, holding it all together. If everything moves, breathes, and has it’s being in you, you can do no more than give yourself, and that is the picture of God. It is the only answer that will ultimately matter to Alice. And slowly she is beginning to find that out as she learns how to live life and be a good mommy to her boys while in a wheelchair. God gives Alice Himself – not just a bunch of answers – no, He is the answer; He doesn’t just give a bunch of Words, He is the Word. And that is the hope that she’s waking up to every morning. And I’m praying it continues, and that it is the only hope that will truly satisfy her and remind you that the same hope satisfies you.
© Joni and Friends
Joni and Friends Wheelchair Drive March 29th
Join us at our Joni and Friends Headquarters Wheelchair Drive on March 29th from 4pm-6pm at Lighthouse Church in Newbury Park, CA.
Everyone is invited to donate used manual wheelchairs and other mobility devices to our Wheels for the World program.
