“Life
isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the
rain.” (Author unknown)
Like
most people I know, I don’t like to keep broken stuff around. But I had never given it too much thought
until our accident. Some people were
goofed out by our brokenness. I think
they didn’t know what to say. Or seeing
wheelchairs and stuff just made them feel so bad, they didn’t know how to
process it. Some of our friends didn’t
call as much, or seemed in a hurry to get away, or were just bored since we
weren’t really cool or fun or spontaneous anymore, especially not now. We had so little to offer, yet needed so much
attention, and we always felt like a big, hairy spectacle.
One
of my favourite passages is Isaiah 61:1-2, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is
on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”
These verse are a
nice reminder to reach out to the broken, I’d thought as I highlighted them the
summer before our life went nuts. And I
liked that heart-stopping moment when Jesus read these verses to the Jews in
the synagogue. And like an artist who
pulls the veil off his work, a priceless sculpture, Jesus went on to say, “I’m
the one.”
But
now what caught my attention was later in the passage, when the Lord called a
motley crew of prisoners and the depressed and broken-down people “oaks of
righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour” (verse
3).
God
gave the lowly ones the task of rebuilding His flattened Kingdom. Not the people I would have picked for my
task force, but if pressed, I would have to admit that those I consider the
heart and soul of our church are those who have waded through dark, dark times…
I was getting the idea that God Himself found great value in those the world
deemed ruined.
The
above is an extract from a book called My Life and Lesser Catastrophes by Christina
Schofield.
On
her 30th wedding anniversary Christina and her husband Allen set out
for a ride on their motorbike. After
skidding on loose gravel they ended their day in hospital. Christina had concussion. Allen had broken his neck.
This
is not one of those ‘we prayed and Allen was immediately healed’ kind of
books. Christina talks honestly of the
enormous difficulties of coming to terms emotionally, spiritually and
practically with the accident. Yet this
is not a depressing book either, but rather an uplifting one which truly does
challenge the reader despite being written in very conversational language and
therefore being easy to read.
Christina’s faith is severely tested.
She cries out to God, and often finds only silence in response. Yet she
holds on, and her faith comes through in her book as something real, important,
and living.
This is not a brand new title, but sometimes it is good to remind folk that some books which have been around a little while still have a very valid voice!
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