| Return |
Amazing Grace: Experiencing Christ’s Sustaining Power Through My Journey of Suffering
By Gloria Jackson
Gloria Jackson is a missionary with Assemblies of God World Missions.
It has been the joy of my heart to fulfill my life’s purpose by serving as a missionary with Assemblies of God World Missions for many years. Shortly after I graduated college, my late husband, Bob, and I left for Africa. We spent 16 years in “our spot of the world,” and thought we would never leave. But our son, who was born in Africa in very complicated circumstances, had an array of physical impairments. Because of his condition, we were obliged to relocate to Brussels, Belgium. We quickly realized that God had used our son’s condition to place us where He wanted us to be at that time. We were totally focused—heart and soul, with all our strength and all our time—on winning the lost to Jesus.
During these years, I enjoyed a period of profoundly close relationship with God as well as productivity in ministry. My communion with God was intense and unbroken, and I was presented with an unending chain of ministry opportunities. God’s anointing on my life seemed palpable, and I continually perceived that I was speaking God’s words into the lives of the individuals with whom I interacted. My activities resulted in many transformed lives as I led an evangelistic outreach in Brussels to French-speaking women from more than twenty nations.
This period of productivity and blessing ended abruptly with my son’s attempted suicide, followed by his diagnosis with mental illness. Shortly afterward, my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 59. A succession of losses then rolled into my life. I lost my home of 10 years in Belgium, my daily contact with friends there, my ministry, and my identity as a missionary actively engaged in service on foreign soil. In the midst of my husband’s illness, I lost the strong foundation he had provided for our home and had to assume all the responsibility he had carried for our family and our missionary ministry. I lost his presence from our home when he entered a nursing home. I lost his companionship, his conversation, and finally, his recognition of me. In addition, I lost my financial security due to the deceitfulness of our insurance agent, a “Christian friend,” who knowingly provided false information regarding our assets to the Medicaid agency, causing my husband to be denied Medicaid coverage for many months. I experienced further financial loss when our “friend” charged me an enormous sum I did not owe, and also deviously acquired ownership of a paid-up insurance policy on my husband’s life. I lost, to some degree, my sense of credibility as a representative of Christ, since I was considered by the Medicaid personnel to be attempting to perpetrate fraud, and for a long period all my attempts to change their perception failed. I lost my personal safety when, as my son’s illness intensified, he not only made repeated threats to harm and even kill me, but also attacked me on several occasions.
Worst of all, I lost the perception of God’s presence in my life. For almost the next 10 years, I only felt His presence at rare intervals and only saw momentary glimmers of His activity on my behalf. As present and active as God had seemed for the 10 previous years, He seemed equally absent and inactive during the next 10 years. The ministry in which I was now engaged consisted of unfulfilling tasks for which I was ill prepared. Although I was technically still a foreign missionary, my stateside assignment was unrelated to any form of ministry I had exercised in the past, and the work I performed did not even seem to me to qualify as ministry. Not only did my “real” ministry seem lost, but my whole life seemed to have been rejected by God and deprived of His blessing.
During the chaotic events of this period, many times I was enshrouded by emotional and spiritual darkness so intense that I knelt before God with my face to the floor, imploring Him to give me just a faint glimmer of the light of His presence so that I could live through the night. Rarely did I receive a response. Countless times I entreated God not to let my faith fail. It seemed that I was hanging from a ledge by my fingernails.
For many months, a significant part of my day involved performing acts of service for my dependent family members—daily visits to the nursing home to feed and comfort my helpless husband, caring for the needs of my impaired son, plus for my infirm mother, who was also living with me because she could no longer care for herself.
During this time, I enrolled in the doctor of ministry program at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. In one class, I was asked to participate in a demonstration of the dynamics of a spiritual direction session. As the “directee,” I chose to use my real life situation in the demonstration. The question I posed to the “director” was, “What is God saying to me in His silence?” At one point, the student “director” asked me if I was accusing God of unfaithfulness to me by His “absence” and “silence” during the horrific events of this period of my life. I replied that I thought not, but was aware that there is always some disparity between one’s “espoused beliefs” and one’s “beliefs-in-practice.” At the end of the demonstration, the professor, an experienced spiritual director, gave me an assignment: to write my espoused beliefs concerning the faithfulness of God on one side of a sheet of paper and to write my beliefs-in-practice on the other side.
While I was still mulling the assignment over, I was invited to speak at a retreat for ministers’ wives in Alabama. The demands of my schedule—caring for the needs of three dependent adult family members, the responsibilities of my job with Assemblies of God World Missions, and the requirements of the doctoral program in which I was engaged—prevented me from having the time to prepare adequately for this retreat. My husband, who then was in a nursing home, had come close to dying with pneumonia, and I had spent many additional hours at his bedside. So I left home with material prepared for only one session of the four in which I was expected to speak. I decided that driving would give me some much-needed hours of solitude and reflection, so I printed directions for the trip from MapQuest on the Internet.
As I was driving, I discovered that the directions were extremely succinct. They contained nothing that was unessential. This was frustrating to me, because when I travel, in addition to the essentials, I also like to have “confirming information” such as, “You will pass a large Baptist church on the right, and then you will see a Wal-Mart in the distance on the left.” That kind of directive reassures me that I am still on course and have not failed at some point to follow the instructions properly.
As I looked at the directions from MapQuest, they appeared confusing. The exit numbers from the interstate were increasing in numerical order as I was driving north. I was at exit 267 when I looked at my directions and noticed that my next change of route would be on the outskirts of Atlanta, where I would take exit number 17. For a moment, I grew uneasy, wondering how I would be able to take exit 17 when the exit numbers were increasing rather than decreasing. Then I passed the Florida state line into Georgia and immediately realized that a new numbering system began at the state line. And I realized that the directions from MapQuest did not need to tell me anything that had nothing to do with my arrival at my destination. It was “nonessential,” as would become evident at the proper time. My directions did not need to say, “Renumbering of exits starts at the Georgia state line.” In fact, the directions did not even tell me I would be crossing the Georgia state line. Telling me that, too, was unnecessary.
I just needed to trust the minimal instructions I had been given and focus on carrying them out. If I did that, I would arrive at my destination just as surely as if I had been given abundant “confirming” information. In fact, the paucity of details would facilitate my journey, because while driving I did not need to have my attention diverted from the road to read profuse directions. They needed to be succinct.
This experience provided a flash of spiritual insight. During the long journey I had been on, God had given me minimal “confirming” information about the path I was on. I wanted to be given precise details so I would know I was still on course, and I wanted the next turn that would be expected of me to be abundantly clear. I wanted it all to make sense in the framework of my own understanding. But God chose instead to increase my faith. So He increased His silence. Sometimes I was traveling for long periods with no directions being given. He increased my faith in His ability to lead me safely to the proper destination, even when I understood a minimal amount about the route I was taking. So I discovered what God was saying to me in His silence. He was saying, “Trust me!”
When I stopped for the night, I took my laptop computer into the motel room to work on my material for the retreat. I was extremely anxious about my lack of preparation. While looking for a certain comment made by Henri Nouwen, I ran across a story he recounted an event that occurred during the time he spent at the Daybreak Center helping to care for physically and mentally handicapped persons. When he was invited to go to Washington, D.C. to speak at an important conference, he decided to take with him one of the mentally-impaired residents, Bill, so they could minister “together” according to the pattern Jesus used in sending His disciples out by twos. During Henri’s presentation at the conference, he discovered that Bill had his own idea of what ministering “together” meant. While Henri spoke, Bill came and stood beside him. As Henri finished reading each page of his manuscript, Bill took it and placed it on a nearby table. He even chimed in at a certain point in the presentation, saying, “I’ve heard that before.” Bill’s efforts to help were very endearing to the participants of the conference, and gave a totally different tone to the presentation. Though simple and unsophisticated, his participation in the presentation added a significant impact.
As I read the story, again I had a flash of divine insight. I realized that I was “Bill,” and God was “Henri.” I was agitated because I felt responsible for the material to be presented at the retreat. But my job was just to “turn the pages.” God had invited me to come with Him on this trip so we could minister together, but He would provide the message. And He was inviting me to trust Him, not my own preparation.
As I traveled the next day, I actually felt God’s presence in the car with me. After enduring His perceived absence for such a long time, I was overwhelmed with delight at actually feeling His presence with me. I kept looking in the direction of the passenger seat, laughing aloud, and thanking God for letting me accompany Him on this trip to minister with Him.
During the retreat, I spoke three times on the topic of suffering. Many women said to me, “God sent you here just for me!” After the retreat, I was able to stay over for another day of personal retreat and solitude in the incredibly beautiful surroundings of the Springville camp. I sat in the gazebo by the lake, walked in the forest, and lingered at a gorgeous waterfall. Before leaving the next morning, I was drawn again to the waterfall for a last moment of contemplation and refreshment. I walked on the rocks that made stepping stones into the middle of the stream that forms at the base of the waterfall. I felt God whisper to me, “Look carefully at this. There’s a message here for you.”
I marveled at the beauty of the design created by the massive rocks strewn about and poised at such unusual angles, as though some giant hand of an artist had picked them up and placed them in the most unlikely positions for the greatest effect on the viewer. And then I thought, “That’s exactly what happened! The hand of God placed them there in this design.” At some point in time, these rocks all were part of a very thick layer of solid, unbroken rock under the surface of the soil. But at a certain moment, a tremendous upheaval occurred, blasting and shattering this rock and propelling its fragments in all directions, leaving them strewn about, poised in these striking positions.
And the result was a waterfall that comes spilling out of the lake, plunging in a torrent down a sharp precipice. It bubbles and gurgles as it rushes over and around these huge rocks, and then it forms a stream that ripples as it keeps on flowing around the bend and out of sight. The result of the cataclysmic event was the creation of a place of breathtaking beauty, where countless people have come—and still come—to drink in refreshment for their spirit. And whatever their vantage point—whether they are observing the torrent, the bubbles, or the ripples—everyone who comes into contact with this scene is blessed and refreshed.
And I thought, “I get the message! This is what you are doing in my life!” And I prayed, “Lord, let the cataclysmic upheaval that has shattered my life produce a waterfall. Let its design be recognized as the work of the Master Artist. Let it bear the unmistakable imprint of your hand. Let your grace flow from my life to bless and refresh everyone with whom I come into contact. Let it flow according to your purpose for each specific moment and occasion. Let it spill over in a torrent to bless some on certain occasions. Let it bubble and gurgle as it blesses others in a different context. Let it ripple in a continual flow to bless all who come into my presence. And help me to trust You until the rending and shattering and rearranging are complete—until all the elements of my life have been placed in the very best position to reflect your glory.”
When I got into my car to drive back to Florida, I reached into a storage compartment and pulled out the first tape my hand touched. Mile after mile, the tape looped and replayed. Over and over the singers admonished me, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding;” “trust Him, and you shall find good favor and good understanding;” “trust Him, and He shall direct your path;” “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus ….” And I thought, This is God’s message to me. “Trust Me.” It’s what He has been saying to me all along in His silence. And it is what He is now shouting at me.
So what about my beliefs-in-theory concerning God’s faithfulness and my beliefs-in-practice assignment? When I arrived home, I wrote my espoused beliefs:
I believe that God is with me, according to His promise. I believe that He will never leave me or forsake me, but will be with me always, even to the end. I believe that when I walk through the waters and the fire, He will be with me. I believe that He foreknew me and predestined me to be conformed to the image of His Son. I believe that He is working all things together for my eternal good because I love Him and am called according to His purposes. I believe that nothing can separate me from His love—not height, nor depth, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor life, nor death, nor any other thing. I believe His eyes are upon me to rescue me and show himself strong in my behalf. I believe He is not only able to keep me from falling, but He will never let me fall because I am among the righteous. I believe that I have a living hope to attain an inheritance reserved in heaven for me. I believe that I am protected by the power of God through faith, even though I have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of my faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I believe that He who has begun a good work in me will complete it. I believe that He will preserve me and bring me safely into His kingdom.
And my belief-in-practice? I wrote:
While I firmly believe the above-mentioned truths with my mind and in my spirit, in my emotional being—an arena greatly affected by the condition of my physical body and the pressures and constraints it is subjected to—there is a desire to escape my pain; a need for the reassurance of the presence of God while I must endure it; and a need for an understanding of its meaning in my life. I’m like the child on the physician’s table having her broken arm set, and looking to her father for reassurance that the pain is endurable and will soon be over.
I also think I’m manifesting a sort of “functional atheism”—I’m acting as though everything depends on me instead of God. Before Bob’s illness, he took care of everything—our business affairs, missions obligations, and travel arrangements. A consummate nurturer, he also took care of our son and me, doing many practical things such as keeping my car filled with fuel and providing countless services for our son, who has multiple physical and mental challenges. When I had to assume responsibility for everything at once—later adding the care of my mother—I also assumed a new mental stance: “Everything depends on me now.” Because the process of getting Medicaid coverage for Bob was so dreadful and prolonged, coinciding with several threats and attempts on my life by my son, God seemed to be silent and inactive. I started to feel, I wish God would show up and help me—or at least say, “Hang on; I’m with you, and everything will eventually be all right.’”
I think part of my lack of trust is in me rather than in my Father. So often it feels as if I am being tested beyond my ability to endure. The responsibilities of my life far outweigh my time constraints and my resources. I’m afraid that I might suffer physical or emotional collapse, or my faith might fail. I need the reassurance of my Father’s presence to help me endure. I fear that if He is silent or inactive too long during this excruciating ordeal, I will conclude that He really is absent and inexistent, and I will abandon my faith in Him. I’m afraid that I might lose my tight grip on Him. 1
After expressing these two sets of beliefs, I wrote the following reflections on this exercise:
It appears that God is trying to close a gap between my espoused beliefs and my beliefs-in-practice. With my mouth, I’m saying, “He will never let the righteous fall.” But in practice, I am not trusting His love and faithfulness to hold me. I am desperately trying to hold on to Him. I think He wants me to relax my tight grip and trust that He will hold on to me. Perhaps He even wants me to fall to find that underneath are the everlasting arms.
I believe that God is trying to lead me to a new level of faith—one that does not depend on what I see or what I feel. He wants my faith in Him to be unaffected by the conditions of my life—however chaotic and hopeless they appear—or by the state of my emotions. He wants me to have an unwavering assurance in His faithfulness that is based on what the Bible says about Him and what the evidence of my past experience confirms.
I think in His silence He is inviting me to develop endurance, a quality that He highly values, as evidenced by its frequent mention in Scripture. “You have need of endurance .” (Hebrews 10:36, NASB). “Let us run with endurance .” (Hebrews 12:1). “We count those blessed who endured” (James 5:11). “If you patiently endure, this finds favor with God” (1 Peter 2:20). “Blessed is [the one] who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life” (James 1:12). While I am fidgeting and squirming, God is training me in endurance so I can be “perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” He is inviting me to fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross”… so that I may not grow weary and lose heart. He is inviting me to have an eternal perspective rather than a temporal one. He is inviting me to be a part of the group of persons who are examples of suffering and patience—the group mentioned in James 5:10,11—the group that included Job, who endured suffering without a clue to its purpose but continued to trust God. He is giving me the opportunity to be one of those who, in spite of great sustained pain and no understanding of God’s “absence,” still choose to obey Him, like one of those described by C. S. Lewis in this observation of Uncle Screwtape to Wormwood: “Do not be deceived. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” 2
He is inducting me into the group of those who, like Paul and his companions in Asia, were tested “beyond endurance”—those who were “burdened excessively, beyond [their] strength, so that [they] despaired even of life” (2 Corinthians 1:8). He is taking me to the very limits of myself and beyond, so that, like they, I might not trust in myself, but I might trulytrust in Him—in fact and not just in words. So that I might set my hope on Him. He is allowing me to accompany Him to Gethsemane where the “cup” He was to drink seemed beyond His physical endurance also, and His human frame desired to evade it. He’s taking me with Him to Golgotha so that I can “share in His sufferings” in complete abandonment to the purposes of our Father.
While I am panting and protesting in pain and fear, God is making me an Olympian runner. While I am moaning and groaning, He is making me a strong and valiant soldier. While I am flinching and writhing, He is making me a heroine of the faith. While I am gasping in agony, He is making me a major threat to the cause of His enemy. While I endure the torture of the fiery furnace, He is refining me so that I will “come forth as gold.” In spite of my pleas for mercy, He keeps on pursuing my endurance training. He considers that “these light and momentary afflictions are not worthy to be compared to the weight of glory that is to be revealed in me.”
ENDNOTES
[1]A paper submitted to Dr. Norman Shawchuck in partial fulfillment of the requirements of PTH 975 “Leading Others in Spiritual Direction” (Springfield, MO, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary), June 6, 2003.
2C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (London: Geoffrey Blas., 1942; London: Collins/Fontana Books, 1975), 47.