I was looking at a piece by Elisabeth Elliott early this morning (indeed, only 19 minutes into the new day). She was recounting a trip to the hospital with her husband, and their waiting in the waiting room for a radiation treatment–a place full of foreboding and feelings of terror, which seemed as if it were the “vestibule of Hell” to her. Ever had those feelings? The ominous presence of the unknown…the excruciating anticipation of learning the worst while reaching out for even the very thinnest wisp of hope? Have you known severe trial?
I have been there in that vestibule. I could feel the searing breath of that place; but, praise God, I’ll never pass through its doors. Through devastation and turmoil the adversary delights in attempting to drag us ever-closer for a taste of its misery. He expertly wields his weapons of fear, and brandishes pain with great skill as well. Oh, the marvelous deliverance we have as believers, even in the midst of testing.
Yes, we have known it. Our first baby came too quickly, with life threatening results. I didn’t even get to see her before I was whisked off to surgery. There was one road to the hospital in Jackson Hole…through a canyon prone to snow slides. Had my husband not followed the Spirit’s prompting to stay overnight at the hospital, we would have been trapped on the other side of the avalanche that filled the road late that night. We “lost” our second baby (click on the “God’s Quiver” for more about that). My father, with whom I was very close, suffered a tragic fall, which resulted in brain damage. We were on the road cross-country to reach him when we got the call that he was gone. After the birth of our third child, I had an office procedure that was botched, and the consequent “minor surgery” to fix that problem was also botched. My husband (who now jokes that this is why they call it “practicing medicine”) sat in the waiting room for long past the “ten or fifteen minutes”, looking into the face of our new daughter and wondering if they were going to see me again. Sometimes God gives us a Joseph sort of hindsight…at my follow-up appointment from this event, my ever-valiant husband plainly and quietly told the doctor that he would pay for the initial service we requested, but not for any of the bills incurred from what ensued. Presumably out of fear of greater repercussions, the doctor had our entire bill (including the delivery of our daughter and a week’s stay in the hospital) wiped clean, for a total savings of $18,000. God works in mysterious ways…we had no insurance. We testified to this doctor. God gave me marvelous love and joy and confidence throughout the situation, for which I still praise Him.
But–this does not begin to speak of the inner battles I have waged with myself, with the adversary. And you know how he operates…lots of covert activity, so that we may attribute the onslaught to some other thing. He has many “snipers” who will attempt to drop us in our tracks. He will “dry gulch” (shoot you in the back) you without hesitation. In my own experience, I rarely “see” him in what I understand to be hand to hand combat until I have fought and overcome him in his under cover attempts on the same temptation numerous times. Some of those skirmishes could have had devastating results had I not had the Lord of Hosts to strengthen my arm, as well as to fight for me. I tremble sometimes in prayer when I think of them, and also rejoice that “we are more than conquerors” through our great Savior.
In times like these it is like a healthful balm to have great thoughts tucked away in your heart: “My peace I give unto you…” “We have an anchor that keeps the soul, steadfast and sure while the billows roll; Fastened to the Rock which cannot move–grounded firm and deep in the Savior’s love.” “God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid.” “Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side…” Psalm 121… Such words yield a sensible calm.
I recently was emailing a friend who said that he wondered why he and his wife had never been subjected to any serious testings in his life. My answer was this:
“Severe” is a relative term, don’t you agree? With “severe” trial also comes divine ease that onlookers cannot fully understand. It redefines suffering for the sufferer. I daresay you have both had issues and events that others would view as “severe”. God is good in ministering to our dust and granting enablement, I find.
God knows what constitutes “big stuff” for you. Your big stuff may not impress me as being “severe”. And my big stuff might be nothing to you. We are all at different places spiritually and otherwise…God, in His wisdom, is the only One who can truly understand the magnitude of what we are experiencing, because only He knows us through and through.
Do you feel as if you are in the vestibule today? Things seem so horrific, insurmountable, agonizing, mystifying as you search for the “why”? Read these verses before you begin to bemoan your loneliness in suffering. Remember that Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” This is a verse I love. Everything about the world, He has conquered. John Gill’s Exposition of this verse says,
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world;
it is very observable how the phrase, “in the world ye shall have tribulation”, stands, and is encompassed, before, with these words, “that in me ye might have peace”, and behind, with these, “be of good cheer”… Believers, of all men, notwithstanding their tribulations, have reason to be of good cheer, since their sins are forgiven, the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts, their redemption draws nigh, and they have hopes of glory; and particularly, because as Christ here says, for their encouragement under all their tribulations in the world, “I have overcome the world”: Satan, the god and prince of the world, with all his principalities and powers, which Christ has led captive, ransomed his people from, and delivers them from the power of; and all that is in the world, the lusts and sins of it, their damning power by the sacrifice of himself, and their governing power by his Spirit and grace; and the men of the world with all their rage and fury, whom he has trodden down in his anger, restrains by his power, and causes the remainder of their wrath to praise him; in all which conquests he makes his people share, and even makes them more than conquerors, through himself: so that they have nothing to fear from the world; nor any reason to be cast down by the tribulation they meet with in it.
I am really not sure why I am awake at 1:16 am, typing this. Perhaps someone needs these words right now.
Have courage, friend. Only a little while longer.
