{"id":8466,"date":"2012-08-28T13:23:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T18:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.familylife.com\/flministries\/?p=8466"},"modified":"2012-08-28T13:23:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T18:23:00","slug":"praising-god-in-the-midst-of-misery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/marriage\/marriage-challenges\/hardship-and-suffering\/praising-god-in-the-midst-of-misery\/","title":{"rendered":"Praising God in the Midst of Misery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My once-fit fifty-year-old body had morphed into a swollen, purplish red, moon-faced distortion of its former self.\u00a0I hated seeing my new Jabba the Hutt figure in the mirror and the horror in friends\u2019 eyes when they saw the new me for the first time.\u00a0Bloated and disfigured from the disease and medications to inhibit its advance, I was, in a word, gross<\/em>.\u00a0The only cream capable of sealing my skin enough to retain heat was Eucerin, not the lotion but the cream.\u00a0Did I say cream?\u00a0It felt more like paste<\/em>, and my only remembrance of the stuff was watching my girls use it to take off the ridiculous face paint they experimented with during their excessively made-up adolescent years.<\/p>\n

I would steal away into my bedroom, a tub of lard preparing to apply a tub-o-lard to his body.\u00a0One bath towel to sit on, another to protect the carpet from my gelatinous feet, and a fan I knew I would need sooner rather than later.\u00a0My wife, Judy, would come in, and we would begin spreading the salve, watching it literally melt into my superheated skin.\u00a0For about five minutes, comforting warmth would return to my body\u2014only to morph moments later into a suffocating coat of gel that caused sweat to pour.\u00a0Then out came the fan, for about ten to twenty minutes of pure, unadulterated misery.<\/p>\n

Early on in the experience, I called on every spiritual resource and procedure I knew of, but nothing worked.\u00a0So I sat in front of the fan, weeping as the misery drained hope from my mind and, more dangerously, faith from my heart.\u00a0The pain was intense, but the misery was more than I could bear on my own.<\/p>\n

Then I received an e-mail from my friend and teacher Bruce Wilkinson, who had graciously agreed to be a mentor to me before he knew I would become such a basket case.\u00a0Bruce\u2019s advice initially put me off, even angered me.\u00a0His counsel?\u00a0Praise God!<\/p>\n

Praise God?<\/em>\u00a0I remember thinking as I abruptly closed his e-mail.\u00a0Praise God?\u00a0Who are you, Bruce Wilkinson, mister Jabez with all your stardom, comfort, and blessing, to tell <\/em>me to praise God when you have no idea how it feels to be me?\u00a0When your world falls apart and your skin falls off and the doctors tell you that you have maybe months or at most a few years to live, then <\/em>you praise God.\u00a0I need help, and you just rubbed salt into my wounded heart in a way that could not be more real than if you rubbed rock salt into my tender skin!<\/em><\/p>\n

This was not the first time I had reacted against one of Bruce\u2019s suggestions\u2014only to later discover the wisdom of his recommendation.\u00a0The Holy Spirit began to whisper reminders of Bruce\u2019s obvious personal commitment to me and past penetrations of the deceptions of my heart that for some reason only Bruce had seen.\u00a0Begrudgingly opening his e-mail again, I read the entire message.<\/p>\n

Bruce had presented four or five specific groupings of reasons to praise God.\u00a0Some categories focused on my past experiences with the Lord Jesus, some on biblical and theological truths that had become precious to me in my walk with Him, and some looked to my future in Him, the confident expectations the Bible calls \u201chope.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Lord began turning my heart toward Bruce\u2019s words, in shaky handwriting I scrawled a verse, truth, remembrance, or expectation after each bullet point.\u00a0This e-mail turned worksheet turned desperate need for deliverance from gloom became my twice- to thrice-a-day antidote to the hopelessness of my misery.\u00a0Soon I memorized the entire half-hour process.<\/p>\n