Thorns

On Sunday mornings at church, I sit on the front row next to a friend dealing with a disabling disease: myotonic dystrophia. Since receiving a diagnosis in January of 2009, her muscles have continued to atrophy.  It is painful and exhausting for her to stand, and just as distressing and tiring to sit.  Sometimes I help support her when she feels compelled to stand for a worship song.  In those moments she grips my hand intensely: I feel her will.

This woman is more alive than many well people I know.  Vibrantly so.

Today after church we chatted about the so-called “thorn” in the apostle Paul’s flesh – his constant irritant – and how we each experience our own personalized thorns.  Paul prayed for his thorn to be removed three times, and yet it was not.  “The wondrous glory and presence of Jesus came with the thorn,” says author S.D. Gordon.  Paul's thorn probably enabled him to experience spiritual focus and divine intimacy that exceed our wildest imagination.

My friend knows all about thorns.  You might say she lives right smack dab in the middle of a thick briar patch.  And yet she believes the emerging story of her life matters - not just to her, but also to everyone else who shares her days.  Every day a new chapter is written.

She contends that we all have a story, and it is up to us to decide its content.  Will it be a story of bitterness?  Anger?  Withdrawal? Certainly life affords enough struggle and suffering to warrant such responses! Although she has every reason to despair, she chooses the ongoing story of a conqueror - a story of faith, hope, and love.

Her example speaks volumes to me.  Like Paul’s thorn, her disability enables greater intimacy with Jesus.  In fact, sometimes I think He shines right through her eyes and smile as she rides her scooter into the sanctuary on Sunday mornings.

We all have thorns, perhaps customized ones intended to draw us closer to our Lord in ways we will never fully understand.  And yet her example speaks volumes.  All I know is that when I feel her hand in mine, trembling with effort, I also feel her soul quaking: redemption in progress.