Twenty five years ago today I had my very first seizure. I used to dread July 21st because it meant one more year of a life that I thought I would never have. And there is still some truth to that - I would have never imagined that my life would be as it is today. Seizures almost every day,being on every seizure medicine there is and not getting help from any of them,loss of my independence and mobility, using a wheelchair by the age of 39 - my head just spins thinking about it.
Yes, while all of these things are true and still hard to swallow some days, I know that my Jesus has taught me priceless lessons over the past 25 years that I don't ever think I could put into sufficient words.
The most priceless thing God has taught me (and I think I have finally learned it!) is that there is tremendous spiritual weight and value in suffering. You can learn things during times of crisis, that, if you allow them to (that is the key) they will drive you to the very heart of Almighty God. There is no place like that in the world! I would love to say I am in that place all the time, I am not, but God in His grace continues to love me and lead me back there more and more. As Voddie Baucham says, "Trials enable people to rise above religion to God." Such truth in that - religion is wonderful but only the Living God of the Bible can walk you down the darkest journey you thought you would never see.
So, today as one more year passes for me in this "new normal" I am focusing on all that the Lord has done and will do for me. I am blessed beyond words to be able, after all these many years, to know that I know the suffering I am enduring today is working in me a far exceeding and eternal weight of glory - all of this may be unseen but it is the unseen things that have the most eternal value. I praise God for that.
I will also continue to trust my God, Who is bigger than all of my suffering. He will continue to hold me, shelter me and lead me as I follow Him. I give my Jesus all the praise and glory for every minute, good and bad, of the last 25 years and I praise Him for the next 25, knowing He is in control.
"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, The Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable, He gives power to the weak. And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord, shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:28-31
Rejoicing in 25 years of Hope,
Roxanne
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