A HORROR STORY

WARNING: This story includes some horrific images.

Some people love Horror movies and books. I am part of the many who cannot stand them. If you are in this second camp of the squeamish, you might want to skip this Winsday Wisdom. This Horror Story ends with a vital message of hope that we all need as well as some valuable perspective on our fears. But like real life, none of us would choose the in-between stuff to gain the prize.

All of life is a stewardship of God’s purpose. That includes the gift of pain. Pain packages will arrive in different sizes, shapes, and colors. Hurt and heartache become the common characteristics delivered to the heart’s doorstep.

Sometimes the pain is physical, sometimes emotional. It can be sickness, stress, or sorrow. It can come suddenly or slowly; its duration might be short or lengthy, its explanation simple or complicated. One thing is consistently certain; it was not what you ordered.

Mona was involved in a horrific car accident on a hot summer day when the rear tire blew out. Mona lost control of the vehicle as it left the road and rolled several times before landing upright into a fence.

She was transported to a trauma center in critical condition. Lacerations near the eye, fractured vertebrae, broken ribs, respiratory distress, and bleeding in the brain. She coded once. Mona recovered and her condition greatly improved.

Her decline began to spiral when necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh eating disease, set in. Her forehead was solid black; they removed 60% of her scalp. They continued to remove more and more over the next few days. The decisions got progressively harder to make. The surgeon removed her right eye, then the facial skin down to the middle of her cheek; it was a race against the bacteria headed to the brain.

At this point her family loved her enough to let her go home with the Lord. Through many prayers, they heard God’s echoes of mercy and His whispers of love throughout the fourteen days in the hospital. Where sorrows like sea billows rolled, it was well with her soul.

God’s Word offers a promise that we know for those who love God and are called according to his purpose, all things work together for good. All things for good. All things.

The context of Romans 8:28 includes suffering. Suffering can arrive packaged in sickness, sadness, separation, sorrow, or sleepless nights.

Some suffering is felt from the pain inside us brought on by self-inflicted misery. Some suffering involves pain imposed on us from the outside by others who mess up our lives. Some suffering like in Mona’s story seems to sum up it all up at its worst.

No matter how pain comes and how long it lasts, ALL of it is a stewardship issue. Why? Because all pain, no matter what size, shape, or color, comes with instructions about God’s purpose.

ALL things work together for good. . .

There are four lines of thought or belief systems connected to this principle. (1) ALL things work together for good or (2) MOST things or (3) SOME things or (4) NO things. It’s all, most, some, or nothing. Those are the only options for Mona’s family and for you in your life struggles.

You can pretty much throw out “some things” as any kind of trustworthy philosophy because that leaves everything to a God who controls nothing, not even chance. You can also eliminate “most things” as a viable option because that would mean that God’s power can be stopped and His goodness can be diverted by something more powerful. What kind of God is that?  

So reality boils down to two options on polar opposites of the spectrum. One choice, nothing works together for good because life is just chance, chaos, and confusion. If that is true, then nothing has value or purpose in this world. Nothing. Not pain or possessions. Not the past or the future. Not even life itself.

The other view is for everything to work together for good because God is sovereign and loving and has gladly chosen to do you good with all His wisdom and power. If that is true, then goodness is guaranteed. Nothing can stop or even hinder God.

Which one is it? Nothing or everything?

Now here is the kicker.

WHAT YOU THINK DOES NOT CHANGE REALITY, BUT REALITY CAN CHANGE YOU.

Reality changed Mona and her precious family. It changed me as I walked through this Horror Story with them. It also made the answer to the four viewing options of life crystal clear.

What would Jesus say?

God’s Son Jesus voluntarily left his home in glory to come down to our fallen world, humbled himself as a man to love, teach, and help us. Yet He was hated, rejected, humiliated, shamed, mocked, beaten, whipped, and left to die on a cross. It was all suffering and pain, all bad things done by bad people.

However, when mankind, representing and including each of us, made absolutely the worst decision ever in history by rejecting Jesus and crucifying God’s Son, God turned that into our greatest good. Now we are forgiven and accepted by God and adopted as His very own children.

What would Jesus say? The correct answer is ALL things.

In the very worst case scenario, God brought about the very best thing that could ever happen to us. So that is our hope! When everything was on the line and we made the wrong choice and did the wrong things, God still caused it ALL to work together for our greatest good.

All things. God wants you to know this is true at all times in every circumstance. The reality is not some things or no things; it is all things including the most painful struggles and suffering. God connects all the dots and brings together all the plots of your life story. He wraps up the loose ends. God is so big and His loving arms are so wide that He can wrap His goodness around all things including difficult people and despairing circumstances.

There are many things we do not know.  We do not know why babies die or families fall apart or children have special disabilities or loved ones have brain tumors or a mother suffers from a flesh-eating bacteria. But we do know God has not forgotten us or stopped loving us nor will He ever be hindered from working all those things together for our greatest eternal benefit.

I cannot explain why bad things happen to good people like Mona. God does not need me to protect Him or to defend His ways. God’s plan is far too complex, and way too connected to so many lives throughout so many generations that our earthly minds could not comprehend it if it were explained to us. 

However, God has given us the simple version of something more glorious than any human mind has ever imagined.

THE WORST THING GOD WILL EVER DO TO YOU IS DRIVE YOU TO HIMSELF TO DO YOU GREATER GOOD. God will teach you and empower you to live and love like Jesus.

Surely God’s goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life and then I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Do you believe that reality? Mona’s family believed it until the big test came. Now their hope would have to overcome the deteriorating circumstances. It’s one thing to have this wonderful promise marked in your Bible with the ability to recite it in the emergency waiting room, but it does not become real without you being placed in a humanly helpless and hopeless situation.

Could you hold to that belief if you received the news that your spouse has been in a car accident? What about learning she is in critical condition? What about when her heart stopped? Would you still believe in God’s goodness when she began to show evidence of pain from a flesh-eating bacteria? Would your confidence grow stronger while her skin color turned increasingly darker as more skin died and decayed?

My stomach gets sick even thinking about the Horror Story nightmare that became part of Mona’s life and her family’s struggle with her last earthly days, days no one could ever have foreseen.

Mona’s faith was probably the strongest. Her only concern was for her family. She believed in God’s care for her as she prayed for her family as they worked through the horrific tragedy. Eventually, they found their faith firmly anchored to the God of Hope.

Was it easy? No. Do not assume this brief summary implies that. The human heart reacts traumatically to pain, even more so when it is your loved one’s pain. Questions abound. There are few answers if any.

Why? No one knows. How did this happen? A tire blowout, car wreck, ambulance ride, surgery, ICU? Those things happen. No one wants to get that kind of news, but how does that end up as a story about flesh-eating bacteria? Contamination somewhere, certainly, but what are the odds? And why Mona?

Mona could surely be included in the top echelon of the sweetest, kindest, most soft-spoken godly women who have journeyed through this worldly wilderness. She was the helpmate to her husband as she nurtured her family and cared for others. So why was her life taken so early and why so horrifically?  There are no answers for that, just faith that looks for grace and not explanations.

Please, please do not make the mistake to think that this story of faith in trying circumstances was as simple as a prayer away. In my many years as a pastor, I have witnessed too many traumatic tragedies. I have cried and prayed with numerous families engulfed in crisis, sat in countless emergency waiting rooms, wept uncontrollably in the hospital chapel, and offered physical, emotional, and spiritual comfort to hurting hearts devastated by sudden events which would redirect the course of their lives.

However, I have never been as overwhelmed with anything in someone else’s family as with Mona’s sudden suffering. It hurt to watch a husband mourn the loss of his wife, to observe children grieve at the loss of their mother, and see siblings weep for the loss of their sister. But the greater sorrow was watching Mona in her loss of earthly life as it moved from the loss of her abilities to the loss of her identity. It was traumatic beyond words.

This was a fearful Horror Story nightmare coming to life and, yet, I have never seen the presence of God’s peace and hope more real than in Mona’s family during those trying days of unspeakable sorrow. 

Do not misunderstand me; I have witnessed God’s power and love with many families over the years. This does not take away from the significance of their stories of faith. 

I, too, have personally experienced God’s sustaining grace and future hope when there was no human help, explanation, or prospect of anything good on the horizon. Those times are more significantly precious to my life’s story as I embrace the Apostle Paul’s dying testimony in 2 Timothy 4 as my own, “Surely the Lord has stood with me in all the trying times both past and present and I am confident He will guide me safely home in the future.”

However, because of the flesh-eating bacteria, Mona’s story became far different from anything I had known. I know how Jesus touched lepers whose skin was rotting away and their limbs falling off. I am certainly not Jesus, but I know Jesus lives in me and leads me to others like Mona and her family for the purpose of reminding them of His presence and love in the midst of their journey through the desert wilderness. This was not some spiritual fairy tale or Guidepost devotional; this was real life drama. It was a Horror Story.

However, it was not the horror or even the fear of holding Mona’s hand that dominated my feelings in this particular family crisis.

I cared about Mona, but I also shuddered to think about the possibility of my wife being in this frightening scenario. I cringed inside as outwardly my head slowly nodded in disbelief. The physicians’ reports would just get worse and then much worse. The decisions went from difficult to impossible, how much skin to cut away to save her versus how much surgery would result in more disfigurement than with what she would want to live.

But Mona’s house was built on solid rock and not sinking sand. When this terrible storm came, her house of faith stood strong.  And oh, how strong they stood! Through it all came a demonstration of family confidence in the God of the Romans 8:28 promise which defied the devastating circumstances. The confident faith did not come easily, but it was genuine; it was powerful. 

The transforming power of God’s promise was on full display. The worse the news, the greater the faith in acceptance of God’s will. More tears meant more prayers. More anxiety would suddenly feel like more peace. They cried in the valley, but stood high on the Rock of Ages.

I SAT IN AWE OF GOD. 

What can I say? You would have had to been there, but then I would not wish that or anything like it on anyone. But God did. Why? I only rely on what God has already told us. 

God knows what He is doing. It is ALWAYS wise, right, and good. ALWAYS!

He is the God who causes all things to work together for good. ALL THINGS!  Car wreck? ALL THINGS! Surgery? ALL THINGS! Code blue? ALL THINGS! Flesh-eating bacteria? ALL THINGS! Death? ALL THINGS! How do you find hope in ALL THINGS, especially the surprise packages of pain?

I do not have answers for all your questions, but I do have a Biblical principle sufficient for all of the chapters in your life‘s story.

You find God’s will for your life in God’s Word.

God’s will is for you to have hope—the confident expectation that you will experience all the goodness God has promised…somehow…someway…sometime. And where do you find that hope? You find it in God’s Word. 

“Hope is like a star—not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity. How can you know you have faith unless that faith is exercised?” That is the way the preacher and prolific writer from the past, Charles Spurgeon, described the process.

Mona faced her Horror Story of death with that hope. ALL THINGS turn out for our good. That will be true for you. I do not have an explanation or a road map, just a promise from the God who cannot and will not lie. It is the promise from the God who rejoices to do you good (Jeremiah 32:41).

You will find the hope you need in the Word of God. Read it. Cling to it. Saturate your life with it, and when your personal pain package arrives marked, ALL THINGS, God’s Word will guard you through the desert wilderness and guide you to the springs of grace flowing with fresh hope.

Yes. HOPE WHEN YOUR LIFE BECOMES A HORROR STORY.

Your pain package will most likely be unwanted. It will most certainly be unexpected. It will become part of your life’s story, probably the best chapter. 

What are you going to do with it? Read the Horror Story through the lens of God’s Word. Embrace it. Be a good steward of it. 

Your story might not be told to thousands here on earth, but it will touch somebody’s life. Mona and countless multitudes will set heaven ablaze with rejoicing at the faithfulness of God’s goodness to you.

ALL OF LIFE IS A STEWARDSHIP. THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO LEARN GOOD STEWARDSHIP OF ALL THINGS. IT STARTS WITH A PAIN PACKAGE. WHEN HANDLED PROPERLY, IT OPENS UP INTO A BEAUTIFUL GIFT BEYOND IMAGINATION.

EYES UP! I look to the hills from where my help and hope come. They come in ALL THINGS.

I love you because I was loved by God first and most.