Glory Revealed

I wrote this several months ago. As I have been reminded in the past few weeks that my life is not my own and that God is in control of both life and death, I am posting this. AND holding on to Romans 8: 18.


This time of year has caught my attention. It is an anniversary of sorts. It was about 17 1/2 years ago that I had a head injury. Some of you are probably thinking, "Well, that explains a lot!"

Actually, it does explain many things about me. Let me go back to bring light to the present.

It is difficult to explain or even for me to completely understand how the way I grew up effected the way I thought about myself, the way I thought about other people and the way that I thought about God. The reality is that although I grew up in poverty and prejudice, I really grew up in my own world. My life was certainly affected by these things, but I never realized until later that these things had birthed and even greater evil in me. Pride.
Coming from poverty I believed that if you worked hard enough poverty could be defeated. And so I worked. I became the first in my family to go to college, with the exception of one semester that my dad completed. To my knowledge, I am the first for generations to graduate from college.  Very subtly pride grew in me.
As I have grown older I have found that given the smallest encouragement pride will grow. I also know from The Word of God that pride is a deal-breaker for really knowing God. So as I have grown in my faith, as I long more and more to intimately know God and grow in that relationship, I must, at every opportunity, be purged of the evil of my own pride.
So it was 17 1/2 years ago that I had the head injury. While I won't go into the details of that injury let me just acknowledge that it was my own fault, no one to blame but myself. This injury has caused years of pain. Most days I have a headache. No pity necessary, just explaining my life. I have learned to deal with the pain that I experience. But some days are worse than others. Some days are excruciating. However, I have learned so much  from the experience of my circumstance.

 A couple of these lessons are:
1. Pride and constant pain cannot live together.
Because of the pain I live with, I understand that there is nothing that I can do to help myself or anyone else.Without the power of the Holy Spirit in me I wouldn't get out of bed, but only because God chooses to use me do I have purpose and meaning.

2. My life is not my own.
I don't get to determine what my day will be like. It may be fine, normal, ordinary. Or it may be one struggle after another. It may be filled with joy. It may be filled with grief. I cannot count on my circumstances to dictate the way I live. Only by allowing Jesus Christ to be foundation do I get to live a life that is not on a constant pendulum.

3.. There is a holy purpose for everything.
I can say without a doubt that I am a completely different person because of the pain I experience. God has taken what was a "not good" event and used it to make me more compassionate to those who hurt. I can grieve with those who experience loss. I can rejoice with those who experience small, seemingly insignificant victories. I live those things.

 I was once ask if I had the ability to go back and change the event of my injury, would I do it? That is a very difficult question. Would I trade the early days of pain, confusion, questioning, grief, loss,and tears that have grown me into who I am today? Would I trade the daily challenge to get out of bed and live a life that is full of joy and thankfulness. I doubt that I would, but I am very glad that it is not my decision to make because I know that God has used my pain to change me. He has used my pain to help me see people differently. He has used my pain to mature me.

So the only answer that makes any sense to me is this:
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."
Romans 8:18

For whatever circumstance you are in today, I hope that my story has encouraged you. I would love to hear how God is using the challenges in your life to reveal His glory.