My left hand held a peg ever so precariously. With the concentration of a brain surgeon, I moved my arm a few inches and watched as my hand awkwardly struggled to put the peg in a matching hole. Looking at the pile of pegs still left on the table, tears filled my eyes. How could this be happening?
An impartial spinal cord injury on Christmas Eve led to this moment. But knowing how I got here didn’t help much in accepting it.
Through our own choices or through circumstances out of our control, we can end up in places we don’t want to be in. In those places, our belief in a sovereign God is tested. If God is always in control and always good, then by God’s grace, we can still glorify Him even in unsought places.
But we may need help to accept where we are before we can begin the work of glorifying God in it.
If you had seen me that day, with the peg in my hand, you would have seen a woman with shaky hands and tears of fear spilling down her cheeks. An hour later, you would have found me reading my Bible and shedding tears of faith as I declared again that I trust God, even in this place.
My fear and my faith were at war. As Brennan Manning said, “I admit I am bundle of paradoxes.”
As a woman who prides herself on not being needy, I was in a predicament. I like to be the one helping others, not the one asking for help. Yet here I was, needing help for almost everything. My new reality forced me to face the truth that I have always been a needy human being. Now, I needed help to accept this new understanding of my situation but none of the medical professionals had a remedy for that.
In this place of need God met me with His grace. I couldn’t make my heart accept my new life of dependence, but I knew Who could. I lay on my couch and prayed for God to do the work of changing my heart to accept my new reality. This is what the Great Physician is best at. He heals hearts as easily as fitting a peg into a hole.
