Encouragement

I've been struggling a bit lately. 

Or - truth - quite a bit. 

It's been a long two years. 

I know that I could have it much, much worse.  My life is fine.  But it feels like I'm in my own serious march across a long desert.

That's often a good time to invest in reading a biography, eh?  I hadn't read anything but my bible in a long while, but last weekend opened Joni Eareckson Tada's biography Joni.

I wanted to share the best parts with you.

To understand, you must know that Joni was injured in a diving accident and went from being a very active young woman to being one who would spend the rest of her life without the use of her hands, arms, and legs.  She may have those limitations, but they certainly haven't curtailed her impact on the world.  Through her sufferings, she shares terrific truths & encouragement.

At one point, Joni's father tells her:
"Look, how many times have you heard somebody - we've done it ourselves many times - pray piously: 'Lord, I'm such a sinner.  I deserve hell and Your worst condemnation.  Thank You for saving me.'  We tell God in one breath that we aren't worthy of His goodness.  Then, if we happen to run into some trouble or suffering, we get bitter and cry out against God: 'Lord, what are You doing to me?!'  Y'see?  I think that if we admit we deserve the worst - hell - and then only get a taste of it by having to suffer, we ought to try somehow and live with it, don't you?"
(His point not being that Joni deserved her suffering but that God was allowing it and we can trust that He knows what He is doing.)

Later, Joni writes: "Fantasies of having physical feeling and touch were no longer necessary because I learned that I was only temporarily deprived of these sensations.  The Bible indiates that our bodies are temporal.  Therefore, my paralysis was temporal.  When my focus shifted to this eternal perspective, all my concerns about being in a wheelchair became trivial."

"Steve helped me end my cycle of peaks and valleys of spiritual progress.  'Set your heart on things above,' he read from Colossians 3, 'and not on the passing things of earth."

"'Irritations come through circumstances and people,' Diana reminded us after one of the sessions.  'That's why it's important not only to endure, but to respond with a godly attitude."

"'Lord,' I prayed, 'what is happening to the excellent gift I read about in Your Word?  What are you doing?'  I recalled passages from the Gospels in which Peter and John questioned Jesus as I was now doing.  'What is that to me?' was the Lord's simple, blunt reply.  Jesus didn't coddle Peter or allow him to indulge in self-pity.  The Lord said, in essence, 'What do you care?  It doesn't matter.  You keep your eyes on me.'  I learned that God's truth is not always kind or comfortable.  Sometimes His love for us involves harshness or stern reproof."

"I really began to see suffering in a new light - not as trials to avoid, but as opportunities to 'grab,' because God gives so much of His love, grace, and goodness to those who do."

"Wisdom is trusting God, not asking 'Why, God?'  Relaxed and in God's will, I know He is in control.  It is not a blind, stubborn, stoic acceptance, but getting to know God and realize He is worthy of my trust.  Although I am fickle and play games, God does not; although I have been up and down, bitter and doubting, He is constant, ever-loving."

Wherever you are today, those are encouraging words, aren't they?