Mr. Cotter shares his emotions, thoughts, dreams, frustrations, and new understandings as he loses his hearing to Meniere’s Disease. I love that he didn’t hold back. It helped me to know all the little things he suffered and processed, things my father may have also felt and thought.
This book is not written from a Christian worldview, but it is written honestly. I appreciate that.
Read MoreLooking back, my first identity crisis was a struggle to understand my value apart from my physical appearance. Later identity crises would focus on my physical ability, my mental capacity, and my role as wife and mother.
With every major medical crisis, I’ve had an identity crisis. Each time, the same question returns: Who am I now?
My spinal cord injury, the latest medical crisis in a stream of crises, created a new slew of questions. The questions may have changed but the answer is the same. I am a beloved child of God.
Read MoreWe think our chronic illness is a 605 pound, bar-bending beast and we cannot find our way out from under it. But it is as light as a toothpick for our all-powerful God. Why do we try to handle our beasts alone, in our own pitiful strength? We are fools to do that when God is standing beside us ready to lift a finger and lighten our load. He is more than able.
Read MoreCongenital blindness is untreatable (v.32). In the opening verses of John 9, the disciples don’t question if the man born blind can be healed by Jesus because they assume a congenital defect is beyond a miracle. Instead, they use the man’s predicament as an opportunity for Jesus to clarify a debated question. “Who sinned to cause this blindness,” they ask, “the man or his parents?”
We have an innate desire to connect cause with effect. But from Jesus’ reply we learn that causation is not as important as purpose. Jesus answers that neither the parents nor the man sinned—the blindness existed so that the wondrous signs of God could be displayed.
Read MoreIt took 17 episodes for CT to recount the losses at Mars Hill. Yet Chad’s story is different. His story recounted losses and blessings.
Chad’s story caused me to stop and consider a list of blessings, silver linings, from my chronic illness. The silver lining of chronic illness is learning there is a purpose we cannot see in the pain we cannot escape.
Read MoreWe all need to be loved and cheered on by personal cheerleaders, especially when we are suffering and feeling alone. We need to be reminded that we are unique and worthy of friendship. The best cheerleaders in life are the ones who celebrate our victories and help us find joy when we can’t find it on our own.
Read More
