Praise in Spite of Suffering
Last Resort Two years ago I agreed … actually sought out … to have a surgery that I had always considered as a “last resort.” However, my health had reached a point where it now sounded like a dream. Since my second spine surgery in 1995, I had lived with severe complications due to nerve damage done to several vital organs. The damage was irreparable. For years, I have followed a brutal and exhausting bi-weekly regimen to compensate for my body’s limitations. Physically, it had become unbearable. I did this regimen through high school, college, into marriage, through...
ENCOURAGEMENT FROM THE BLOG
Grace for Caregivers
Ken Tada knows what it means to be a caregiver. For the last 34 years he has been taking care of his quadriplegic wife, Joni Eaerckson Tada, who has not only been bound to a wheelchair for the last 50 years, but who has suffered from terrible chronic...
Identity Theft: Repossess Our Identity with Truth
I was recently the victim of identify theft. No, not through an online transaction or a lost checkbook. The unlikely location for identity theft was the high school guidance counselor’s office. My son, a rising tenth grader, and I visited the high...
She Descended into Hell
Early this summer, I forgot to take my antidepressants for three days in a row. Normally, a two-day memory lapse would throw me into the pit of deep darkness. This time was different. I thought maybe I had reached a point where God had answered my...
Dear Chronically Ill Parent
A Letter to the Parents Who are Chronically Ill - You are Not a Failure My mum has a chronic illness. She’s been sick for as long as I can remember. Mum, this letter is for you. Dear Parent with a Chronic Illness, You don’t have to say it aloud. I’ve...
Heliotropism | Poem
Yesterday I drove by fields of sunflowers, their happy faces tracking the constant sun. All day, the stems, the east-facing halves, grow and lengthen, bending their flower heads in time with the westward-moving light. All night, their west sides grow,...
I Am Not My Own
Anyone suffering with chronic pain knows that though they would be done with it in a heartbeat, there are nevertheless many treasures to be found because of it. One of the most significant works of grace God has been doing in me on this journey through...