My wife, Cynthia, has Multiple Sclerosis. She was diagnosed with this chronic disease back in 1990, in which the body's immune system attacks the insulation around the nerves.
She has made it 20 years without any real horrendous symptoms until just this year. This last week she started feeling like she was being poked with pins, needles,and nails all over her body. She's had tingling all over for years, but this episode is excrutiatingly painful.
Last night when she did her daily injection of Copaxone, a drug that helps arrest the progression of MS, the pain from the shot welled up in her to unbearable levels. All I could do was look on helplessly as the pain increased in her to the point of tears. My heart was crying for her, and I felt absolutely powerless. I wanted to make her pain stop so bad. There was nothing I could do but pray that the pain would subside.
It's at times like this that things don't make a lot of sense, but really do make a lot of sense. We want to believe we have control; power over our lives, but it's an illusion. Not a hopeless situation by any means, but an important distinction between us and God. God is in control, not us, and He is also the judge of what's best for us and His purposes, and allows trials that lovingly push us to dependence upon Him.
James said it well in his first chapter: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
So what do you do with all this? Here's my theme verse these days: Ps 27:14 "Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord."
It's hard to wait when we want to don the superman cape and save the day; bullets bouncing off of our chest; our x-ray vision seeing things the way we think they ought to be...
What are you waiting on God for? After all, He's the one with the real power over all these things. You can count on that. Just don't rush God. That's taking control again...
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