One Day Closer

Every day I think about where I am–a nursing facility–and I ask myself, how can I get through this day? When I sit in the dining room, there are people drooling, sleeping instead of eating, babbling nonstop about nothing. My room is at the end of a long hallway with rooms on both sides. As you walk down the hall there are people yelling for help from their rooms. I think to myself, this is not where I’m supposed to be!

1 Peter 1:6 – 7

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith— of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

2 Corinthians 3:16 – 18

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Being here feels like a trial. It feels like suffering at times. Why quadriplegia, God! This is so different than how I lived when I was able-bodied. And yet there is hope for me. On a good day, I think the following–maybe I’ve been put here to be a light. Maybe some of these people just need me to smile at them each day and give them some hope. Maybe they need an advocate (especially the ones who can’t even speak).

The Bible says our troubles are light and momentary. On a very good day, I realize this period of time in my life is light and momentary if I look at it in terms of eternity. And I have to remember, things could always be worse.

1 Peter 1:3 – 4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

No matter what I go through, I have an inheritance. It’s guaranteed. It’s ironclad. No stroke of a pen on a will can ever change it. It’s all mine. And it’s something to look forward to as each day passes. On my roughest days when I am in severe pain or depressed or just tired of being imprisoned in this quadriplegic body, I think to myself, I am one day closer to receiving my inheritance. And no matter what happens to me in this life, or how many mistakes I make on this journey, that inheritance will never perish, spoil or fade. Now that’s something I can hold on to for one more day.