And, After You Have Suffered for a Little While

And, after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him belongs the power forever, Amen.

1 Peter 5: 10-11

Someday I will look back on this and smile. I will see with restored vision, with eyes of grace, all that God has done in and through my life. I will be amazed at what I thought was tragedy that really was triumph. I will be restored to vitality and life beyond what I could ever hope for on earth. I will be the person He designed me to be, for the first time, and forever.

God will confirm all the promises of His scripture, every last one, and show me how they were true for me. My heart will be fixed on Him once and for all, no longer distracted by the things of this world. I will be settled in the truth of His love, knowing without a doubt, never again hearing the whispers of deceit.

One day I will no longer be plagued by weakness, for He will strengthen me. I will not wonder if my hand is strong enough to open a doorknob or lift a glass. I will not have to take an elevator because my eyes are too weak for me to see the stairs to walk down. I will be able to run. I will be able to dance. I will praise my Lord then, as I do now, will all my heart, soul, mind and strength, but it will look so different.

Day by day, God is establishing me. With every answered prayer, with every learned truth, He is grounding me in Him. Like a branch that has been expertly grafted into the vine by the vine dresser, I have been adopted by my Lord and made His own. I will abide in Him and He in me.

Here’s the Thing: the God of all grace has called us to His eternal glory in Christ. We are honored by the King and given the opportunity to reflect His glory. We are immeasurably blessed by His immediate, constant presence (David Guzik :: Study Guide for 1 Peter 5). He WILL restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us. Praise God!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

At least it's not bad news

Image
  Radical tumor removal is not always possible because of the critical brainstem or diencephalic locations of some tumors. Tumor progression and eventual death are likely in such patients. Stereotactic radiosurgery for pilocytic astrocytomas part 1: outcomes in adult patients Kano et. al.  So my posts are usually preceded by a scripture verse, often an encouraging one. Today I needed to give you an insight into what I've been experiencing. From the time I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, about a year and a half ago, I was reassured that it was a "WHO grade 1 benign" tumor. I, mistakenly, took this to mean that it wasn't a big deal. Even when I was told in June that it had grown "slightly," I thought that meant they'd zap it with radiation and that'd be the end of it. Guess what, I was wrong. When my June MRI revealed growth, I was referred to the Tumor Center for treatment. Fearing a long, drawn-out process, I was relieved when they scheduled all my...
Read more

The Next Crazy Thing

Image
Buckle in! This is a processing post so it is likely to be long and wordy and emotional and probably flawed in many ways. I thank you for your patience and anyone who makes it to the end gets bonus points in my book 😏.  Let's start with the info. I've been having progressively more intense, more frequent, and longer lasting migraines. Since my eye surgery in May, I've also been experiencing a great deal of nausea, almost daily. Sometimes meds help (with either), sometimes they don't. In addition, since the eye surgery, my double vision has intensified. My depth perception is shot, I'm regularly missing things I grab for, mistaking curbs for cracks in the sidewalk, bumping into walls or counters. Those are the three things that neurosurgery told us to watch for with regards to the shunt functioning properly: headaches, nausea, and vision changes. Now the vision changes were probably because of the surgery and the nausea was probably  because of the migraines, but th...
Read more

When "Wait and See" Wouldn't Sound so Bad

Image
    Ten days after I received the call letting me know that they found something on the MRI I was sitting in the office of a Neurosurgeon.  I have no doubt that God orchestrated the circumstances that had brought me there, including a friend who is also dealing with a brain tumor recommending this clinic. But how could any of this be real? Only a couple of people knew what was going on, but there wasn't much to know before this appointment. All we had were a few key phrases on the MRI Study Result and our dear friend, Dr. Google.  I went into the appointment with the impression that the doctor would either recommend watching and waiting, doing another MRI in six months and seeing if anything changed, or taking it out right away.  In previous encounters where the option was to wait or do something I have vastly preferred doing something, but this time it was different. I had read about the potential complications of surgery and I was scared.  Not to men...
Read more