what she longs to tell Jesus when she is with
him in heaven one day.
“Jesus, do you see that wheelchair? You
were right when you said that in this world
we would have trouble, because that thing
was a lot of trouble. But the weaker I was in
that thing, the harder I leaned on you. And
the harder I leaned on you, the stronger
I discovered you to be. It never would
have happened had you not given me the
bruising of the blessing of that wheelchair.”
This leads us to an often hidden and
unwanted blessing of suffering. One that at
the onset can feel more like a threat than
a comfort. The gift of surrender. In our
darkest valley, so cold, so damp, so alone-
will we lean on him even after we have
begged, pleaded and bargained for God to
take us out and he has allowed us to remain
in the darkness anyway? Will we let him go
with us? Or will we pull our hand away from
him, in the depth of the blackness, when we
really need him more than ever? Regardless
10 HimPower September 2018
of how unbearable those moments may feel,
he is the only one who knows the way out to
the light. Because he is the light. We reach
out our hand to him, in infantile neediness,
trusting that even our most frightening
nightmare will ultimately be redeemed by
our Father. Yet we cannot find the depth of
this reliance until we completely surrender.
Even Job came to this broken place after
much bitter wrestling with God. He finally
relented.
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6
And as we surrender and pick up the
cross that each of us has been called to bear,
we dare not keep our eyes on our feet as we
shuffle down a broken road. No, we lift up
our eyes to the hope that lies ahead. Because
the road we travel does not end here. Hope
is gleaming, oh so brightly, on the horizon.
A time will come where we can say in the