The Greater Miracle
June 27 marks a significant anniversary in my life. Tomorrow it will have been 8 years since I sat on the edge of my bed, buried in grief and rejection, a glut of painkillers in one hand, and a glass of water in the other. Worn and weary, I was ready to sign off permanently. I was done. I’d had enough. Were it not for my husband’s quick action and persistence in getting those pills out my death grip, I may not be here today. Fortunately, they never made it to my mouth. I look back on that day with thanksgiving and rejoicing. While some might think it more prudent to stuff it into the closet and pretend as though that day never happened, I have found that its memory makes each day since then a little sweeter than it may have otherwise been. That day changed me.
The days that followed in the behavioral health ward, where I could step away from the stress of obligations and lay quietly on my bed perched over my Bible in constant prayer, brought immense peace to my soul. For so long I had struggled with the concept of assurance. How could I know that I was truly saved? How did I know that I believed the right things the right way? If I was saved, when did that actually happen? Was it at 14 as I had originally thought? Was it a few years prior when I dropped to my knees in prayer beside my bed one night in surrender and submission to what God would have for me, regardless of its cost? Was it when my eyes had been reopened to God’s grace after spending too long in self-righteous legalism? In those days in the hospital, after God used my husband to rescue me from my suicidal intent, I realized that the moment of my salvation may never be absolutely clear to me, but I knew profoundly that it didn’t really matter the precise moment of when it occurred, because I was His. I belonged to Jesus. And absolutely nothing I nor anyone else could ever do would change that.
When people survive suicide or suicidal ideation and reflect back on the days and years since their darkest moments, the focus is often on all the life they would have missed out on. I can easily do the same. Over the last 8 years I can enumerate the many milestones that mark our lives. My two older children graduated high school and went on to college. My oldest graduated college and even got married a couple years ago. I would have missed my daughter’s wedding! Since that pivotal day, I suffered two more pregnancy losses, but then I have also given birth to two children. They would not have even existed had I perished on that day! Those are just the tip of the iceberg. God has been so incredibly merciful and generous!
These pinnacle days indeed were much, much sweeter when I think about what I would have missed, but it is not the life events and material blessings that have displayed God’s goodness to me the most.
In those days when I was emerging from the darkness, a friend, one whom I did not appreciate enough at the time, had called to encourage me. She said, “I have a verse for you: Philippians 1:6 ‘And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ’”. I don’t remember what I replied, I imagine I probably whined about something in response or challenged her on something else. But I do remember wondering what that verse even meant and how it was supposed to be encouraging to me. I tucked it away and moved on to other things that I thought might be more encouraging. I was foolish.
In my regular Bible reading, which – like my writing - has been strained by the arrival of our youngest child, I am back in the Gospels. Page after page there is a pattern of Jesus doing and saying incredible things to which the Bible says something like, “and they marveled at these things.” Jesus healed the lepers, gave sight to the blind, made the lame to walk, and even raised Lazarus from the dead! They appropriately marveled at these things. These were indeed marvelous, miraculous, awesome works to behold. Sometimes I lament that I wasn’t there to see these great miracles. But as I reflect back on these 8 past years, I realize that what is an even greater miracle than raising the dead is how our Lord can change human hearts, mine especially.
Philippians 1:6 wasn’t encouraging to me back then because I don’t think I really believed it applied to me. I don’t think I really believed that the Lord could change my heart, at least not that much. I had heard the testimonies of people who came to the Lord and were instantly delivered from [fill in the blank with any terrible sin problem]. I tried to contrive my own similar testimony about how I stopped doing this and stopped doing that after I came to the Lord. But notice who the actor was in that testimony. It was me. And characteristic to human beings, my personal efforts at right living were finite and eventually wilted – hence my wondering about whether I was really saved. I was still the same me inside, filled to the brim with envy and bitterness that seeped out and poisoned every relationship I had. I was not relying on Christ. I was relying on me and my goodness, and I was failing… miserably.
June 27, 2013, brought me to the very end of myself. Despairing of my inability to get over my grief, to be useful for God, and to fit into the box that cultural Christianity had for me, I wrote one last prayer to God asking Him to rescue me. He did. And then He changed me. And He’s still changing me.
“…He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion…”. What a glorious and wonderful promise that as we cooperate with Him, He will change us, sometimes little by little slowly and almost unperceptively, and sometimes by leaps and bounds seemingly overnight. I didn’t believe it before, but I believe it now. I can see it. I can feel it as He reworks my desires. Like the crowds in the Gospels, I marvel. I still struggle with envy, an unforgiving spirit, bitterness, impatience, and the like. I still am very far from perfect as every motive seems tainted by sinful desires, if not just plain old selfishness. But it is sweet to behold those moments when I actually don’t want to get back at someone, or when I find myself being unexpectedly patient. “…He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion…”. I marvel. I delight in the sweetness of each day.
Every day with Jesus is a miracle as He works in us.
I belong to Him. He is changing me. What an encouragement!
Thank you, Lord, for June 27, and each miraculous day since. Every. Single. One.
Dearest child of God, if you are reading this and feel the pull toward self-demise, cry out to God. Throw yourself upon the mercy of Christ. Know that He loves you, He can rescue you, and when you belong to Him, He will change your heart. There is Hope for you in Christ. Call someone. Reach out. Check yourself into the hospital. Call the Suicide Prevention line: 800-273-8255. Send an e-mail to tduckworth@tttransformations.com