Two years ago, I wrote at Boundless about fear and suffering and danger, and what a gift they are, because they stir up my hunger and thirst for heaven.
Even in Jerusalem, it’s easy to think, Rockets will never rain down here. Yet sometimes they do. Wherever we are, it’s easy to think that cancer won’t strike, that my job will always be mine, that I’ll never experience injustice or be disappointed by a friend, yet “many are the afflictions of the righteous.”
Not long afterwards, all these things I could have feared came true.
Though it wasn’t rockets, I had my first real brush with danger on the streets. I experienced a few of the most terrifying moments of my life (though not because of any danger to me). My aunt was diagnosed with cancer. I was let down by friends, and I was verbally attacked in a way that took a while to heal. I returned to the US and took on a completely different job.
And you know what?
There. Was. So. Much. Glory. I saw outright miracles from a front-row seat.
But.
All that pain — and even all that glory — maxed out my feelings-meter. I came home bewilderingly numb, and for months, “How are you?” seemed like the hardest question in the world to answer.
So no, I haven’t written much in the last two years. But God has been gently waking me up.
Today I’m sitting in a hospital room with my (now cancer-free) aunt. Are the days after surgery supposed to be like one long sleepover? Because while God didn’t give me any older sisters, He gave me aunts like this one. And the presence, and the loved-with-everlasting-love of God Himself has been here in the middle of her fear, and wakefulness and pain.
He has shown Himself in the steadfast, sacrificial love of her quiet husband. In the doctor who held her hand while explaining the release papers for her surgery. In the tenderness of her nurses. In the Jamaican pastor who just “happened” on her room while waiting to speak to another patient. In the fact that I had booked a ticket to see her before she was rushed to the hospital.
He has shown Himself to me in the fact that I’m more peaceful, more joyful, and more alive than I have been in a long time.
My sister says we prove in every situation that Jesus is enough.
But to prove it there, you have to be in that situation!
Hear me: I am not suggesting we should become pessimistic or morbid or seek out pain. I’m just saying that Jesus has won my trust in the middle of a lot of things I could have feared. “Won my trust” is an understatement, because in the trials He warned me I’d face, He has overwhelmingly come through for me.
Some of my fears have come true, but they wore an unexpected face. That face belonged to Jesus…and with it came beyond-words joy.
And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste… “I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” Daniel 3
God is always able to deliver me…but if it’s not His plan this time, then He joins me in the furnace.
And that’s why there’s no real need to be afraid of the future.
Elisabeth Adams 