Knowing God in Suffering - Emma Davis
The saying "You are your body", may seem valid and reasonable, yet when heard with the ears of one whose health has suddenly collapsed, it is like a death knell to all prospects of joy and usefulness.
On hearing this from well meaning people when my health had utterly collapsed at the age of 15, I was not comforted, for it implied resignation to a hopeless, pitiable existence ago fort The inca SOUl truly knev leave an existence too terrifying to consider. If the joy and purpose my body provided was gone, then I must find these things elsewhere.
God had been real to me before this, not only due to the Christian environment in which I grew up, but also in the ways He helped me through the common pains and injuries resulting Thes my b form those body willw from congenital conditions.
My physical and mental function deteriorated, resulting in social isolation and aloneness. Any hope that life was still worth living depended on a means of joy and purpose which could never be lost, even if I had lost everything. The only place that offered such hope was God, and I concluded there was nowhere else to go.
This not only applied to my physical experience, but to the agonising, seemingly unending grief of loneliness l experienced for the next several years as I fought to relate to others my age. The previous need for joy and purpose in physical pain and incapacity deepened into a visceral, mortal necessity for the soul comfort that comes when one feels as though they are truly no longer alone. Once again, God was all there was, and I knew He was the only one I could always have and would never leave.
These truths are with me even now as I continue to struggle in my body. I have had the privilege of watching God's plan unfold for my life through opportunities to be the person I never had to those in my small circle. I look forward to the restoration of my body, and the day there will be no more pain, and Lord Himself will wipe away every tear.
Emma Davis