REACHING FOR WONDER, Encountering Christ When Life Hurts released this week. I so hope you'll pick up a copy! It's available wherever books are sold. So, get the book, read the book, be encouraged by it, and I promise that you'll be strengthen for the journey of today and the journey ahead. This book really did become the book I needed when life got tough. I think it will be a helpful companion for you too!
Here's a link that will take you to various online bookstores (click the "Buy this Book" button): http://bit.ly/2GLFeiA
Here's the Amazon link: http://amzn.to/2uHAJy0
If you'd like to hear me talking about how much the book has meant to me and my prayers for how it will impact readers, here's the YouTube link to a video: https://youtu.be/wG1hb5fF9xg
And here is the original, unedited introduction to Reaching for Wonder:
INTRODUCTION
The Bible gives us a single encounter, a brief moment in time in which a person in pain encountered a Messiah, a Savior. A single instance of what it looks like to see his face in the hardest times of life. A glimpse of a hand reaching, a heart touching, a God who beckons us to see him through our struggle.
I ponder this God for whom simple healing is not enough. He insists on the encounter. He insists I see. When I am afraid to hope, afraid to reach, afraid to pray one more prayer. When I am mute and I am blind. What does it mean to encounter him then?
What does it mean to encounter him in the dark? I stand beside my son’s bed at two in the morning. He lies there, tubes attached, equipment in a pouch around his waist. Blond hair curls around his face, shadowed lashes touch his cheeks, illuminated only by starlight.
He sleeps.
I do not.
A breeze sneaks through the window, lifts the curtains. I adjust his blanket, watch for his chest to rise, to fall.
He is alive. For now. But there’s no guarantee. Not anymore. Not ever again.
I pull out his blood glucose meter and shove in a test strip. I wait for the beep. Then, I take a sleeping boy’s finger and make him bleed. Rough fingers, calloused from poke after poke after poke. He does not wake. For him, it has become a familiar suffering.
For me, the pain will always be fresh. My son, seven years old, happy, innocent, beautiful, and diabetic. Type 1 diabetes, a disease that could steal his life in a single night, or steal it over years. A cruel disease, and a fickle one.
I hate it. No cure, no cause, no prevention, and no life without the insulin that his own pancreas will no longer provide. I provide it now. If he has enough, he lives. Too much, he dies. It is a delicate dance, every day, every night, every minute, every hour, his life held in the tiny vial of clear liquid attached by tubing through his skin.
So I stand in the darkness and listen to him breath. I test. I hope. I fight the fear. Will the number be too low? Will it be too high? Will I be monitoring all through the night so that this otherwise healthy boy will greet me in the morning? Will I ever sleep soundly again?
I sigh. I will not cry. Not tonight. Not again. I gather his blood on the tiny test strip. I count to five. Five long seconds that feel like a spin of the roulette wheel. Five eternities because I am no gambler.
And like roulette, there is a number. Seventy-five. Too low. I am not a winner tonight.
I shake him. “Jayden, wake up.” He groans but doesn’t wake. I pull out a piece of dried fruit strip and shove it into his mouth. He chews, eyes closed. I watch for him to swallow, to make sure he does not choke. Ten seconds. Twenty. His throat moves.
I breathe again. Constant vigilance. Constant concern. The life of my precious son, hanging in the balance of blood sugars.
This is the pain I endure. This is the suffering I cannot escape. Day after day. Night after night. Watching, waiting, hoping and afraid to hope. An incurable disease. A beloved son.
But my pain is not unique. It is no greater, no less than yours. A lost job, a broken marriage, an estranged child, an untimely death, a scary diagnosis, an incurable disease ... none of us get through life unscathed. None of us have life just as we wish it.
We are not who we wanted to be. Sometimes we are a woman who’s had five husbands and the man she has now is not her husband. Sometimes we live with shame. Sometimes we are a widow with a dead son. Sometimes we’ve lost everything we hold dear. Sometimes we’re sick, lame, and blind. And sometimes we’ve been that way so long we don’t know how to be well. Sometimes our we want to believe, but our faith has failed us. And sometimes, our hurt and hopelessness go so deep that all we can do is walk away.
I’ve been there. Maybe you have too. Maybe you’ve stood in the dark and believed life is naught but a spin of the wheel. Maybe you’ve prayed until you cannot pray anymore. Maybe you’ve come to a point where all you can see is the pain.
And that’s where Christ encounters us.
He encounters us in the heat of the day, on the dusty paths, in the crowds and the dark rooms, on the side of the sea, and on the road out of town when all hope seems lost. In our worst moments, he comes to bring living water, to break the darkness and break the bread. He opens our eyes when we cannot see until all we can see is him.
So I invite you to walk. Walk through these stories of the New Testament’s one-time encounters with Christ. See the depth and purposes of a God whose plans and passion go far beyond our healing. They restore our sight. They restore our soul ... even, and especially, in those moments when life hurts the most.
Come, dare to encounter the living God, and hope again ...
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