JoAnne recently showed me an incredible Guidepost story. A young mother had been stricken with very serious life threatening MS. She was blinded and could no longer eat or move. Her courageous young husband took her home where he arranged nursing care. She could hear her young girls around her but could not see them. As she prayed, God seemed to say to her, “Use the health you have.” At first it seemed like a mockery in her condition. But then she thought more about the one finger that she could move. She took God’s direction to heart and began to be very intentional about using that one finger to communicate with her family. Slowly function returned to a second finger so she focused on how to use that too. Eventually, little by little, much of her health miracluously returned. Each step along the way, she courageously sought to use what new ability she had gained to relate to her family and serve them as much as possible. At each level of recovery she used the health she had and God blessed her with more.
I know from personal experience that when we have a chronic health issue of some kind, it is easy to dwell on the negative. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for that young Mom to change her attitude from pity and grief to focus on the God-given new thought, “Use the health you have.” But what a difference that redirection in her thinking made.
This story has been an inspiration to me in the last week so I thought I would pass it on. A Bible promise that goes with it is this: “Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart” (Ps. 27:14 NKJV).