Happy Monday! I’ve decided to add a feature.

For the next few Mondays, I’ll post a series of excerpts from RELENTLESS GRACE. You can read previous excerpts here.

I hope you enjoy them, and that you’ll encounter God’s invitation to give hope another chance.

HEAVEN (Relentless Grace Excerpt #7)

Spinal Cord Injury denotes varying degrees of damage to the nerves in the spinal cord. The body’s amazing design incorporates a number of protective safeguards, and often this extremely serious injury isn’t immediately medically life threatening. Even when paralysis prevents most voluntary movements, life-sustaining automatic functions continue. Injuries high in the neck sometimes create breathing issues and cause dependence on a ventilator, and comprehensive treatment addresses a long list of other potentially critical concerns. But SCI is primarily chronic and forces adjustments to just about every aspect of life.

In the weeks after my accident I couldn’t move around independently at all, couldn’t even roll myself over in bed, so to avoid bedsores someone had to turn me every two hours. I pretty much stayed wherever someone left me. And since I still found little motivation to do anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary, I tended to stay in bed a lot. Despite efforts to encourage me, this routine resulted in a complete lack of exercise or any other movement at all.

Restricted movement contributed to constrained, shallow breathing which didn’t efficiently clear my lungs. I couldn’t cough effectively because the injury affected my diaphragm. Nurses and therapists tried hard to encourage deep breathing and coughing exercises, but I didn’t put much effort into this important therapy. Over a few weeks’ time the combination of sedentary existence and inadequate breathing created a dangerous situation: I developed pneumonia.

Pneumonia’s nothing to mess with even if you’re relatively healthy otherwise. For someone who doesn’t move around much, the infection can lead to serious complications and even the risk of death. I wasn’t completely aware of the danger, but I vaguely recall significant concern from the doctors and nurses.

As the infection progressed I became increasingly lethargic. Despite the best efforts of the medical team, I spiraled downward. Later I learned that I lapsed into a kind of semi-coma.

I opened my eyes in total stillness, none of the hospital noises to which I’d become accustomed. I lay on my right side, and I couldn’t see anything. I moved my eyes from side to side, but darkness obscured my surroundings. I felt as though I floated in a totally black, open space, alone in a dark void. I didn’t try to move, didn’t try to speak, just lay there and rested in peaceful silence.

It was so completely still. I wasn’t afraid even though I could see and hear nothing to help me orient myself. Peace, that’s what it was. It felt like a palpable peace had settled around me. I closed my eyes for a moment, or maybe for a long time.

Eyes open again, the same calm, serene blackness. I glanced toward my feet and perceived a vague shadow of an image. Someone stood beside me, a presence almost felt more than seen. I waited in the perfect tranquility, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I discerned a faint outline. A man, standing very near, head bowed. Even in the silence, I could sense the man was praying. I closed my eyes again, for a moment or a lifetime.

He’s still there. No sound, no movement, just standing there immersed in prayer. Muted details, just the silhouette of this figure standing motionless beside me, head bowed, surroundings so calm I can almost hear his thoughts. Peaceful, quiet, and dark, just this shadowy form hunched over me.

I waited, quiet, serene, and contented, no desire to do anything or say anything. Everything seemed restful, somehow just as it was supposed to be. I couldn’t determine who stood next to me, somehow certain there was no need to know. It was just right to be here, to just be in the tranquility and peace surrounding me. I was exactly where I belonged. I knew I was safe, as though Love had come alive, wrapped its arms around me, and held me securely in this place of peacefulness.

It’s Jesus! Jesus is standing beside me. This must be Heaven, this space of such perfect peace and calm. I’ve died, I’m in Heaven, and Jesus is standing beside me, praying over me. No fear, no questions, just tranquility and calm. No emotions—not excitement, not wonder, not sadness. Everything here is just filled with a sense of serenity; it’s all just as it’s supposed to be. So quiet, so safe, no more pain, no more fear. I took a deep breath, smiled and closed my eyes.

Heaven.

If you’d like to read the story of Relentless Grace, you can order a signed copy here or purchase it at Amazon.com.

Did you enjoy this article? Please leave a comment, visit my website, and/or send me an email at rich@richdixon.net.

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Happy Monday! I’ve decided to add a feature.

For the next few Mondays, I’ll post a series of excerpts from RELENTLESS GRACE. You can read previous excerpts here.

I hope you enjoy them, and that you’ll encounter God’s invitation to give hope another chance.

TAMING THE MONSTER (Relentless Grace Excerpt #6)

Note: This is a follow-up to last week’s excerpt. If you missed it, you can read it here.

The room became nearly dark as the door closed again, just the dim light from the hallway sneaking under the door. Silence for a few moments, but somehow a different quality permeated the room. A small bit of peace had settled in the shadows.

“Rich.” Spoken so softly I almost felt it more than heard it. “Rich, may I come in?”

Tears flooded my eyes again.

“Al,” I whispered. “Yeah, please come in.”

He crossed the room and stopped beside me. I could hear him there, and then I felt his hand on my shoulder. He stood beside me in dark silence and we stared at the blinds for a few moments. I cried and he held me awkwardly, avoiding the screws, and cradled my head as the fear and pain gushed out. The emotion of this miserable day completely overwhelmed me and the terror of the past weeks seemed to rip at my soul. I sobbed uncontrollably, but I was no longer alone.

 “Do you want to talk about it?” Al asked.

So I told him about the monster in the mirror and the horrible panic, about finally understanding what I had become. How could I ever go outside the room again? How could people even tolerate such a terrifying figure? Why had no one told me about my freakish appearance?

“I can’t live like this. This cannot be what God wants anyone to be. I need to die—that thing in the mirror needs to die. That can’t be me. What happened to me? Where did I go?”

Al and I talked for a long time that evening. We spoke about the embarrassment of feeling like some strange creature that belonged in a circus sideshow rather than in my body. We talked about who—or what—I was in this lifeless skeleton of a body with the Frankenstein screws in my head. I asked the same questions again and again, “What happened to ME?”

At one point, Al went to the bathroom and came back with a hand mirror. “You need to take another look at yourself.”

I recoiled in horror. How could he possibly imagine I’d want to see that monstrous reflection again? But he persisted, gently telling me I needed to take a better look, a calmer look, I needed to see me in the mirror. After a long time and a lot of angry, fearful refusing, I agreed. Slowly, Al brought the small hand mirror up until it was in front of my face.

I closed my eyes as the reflection appeared before me, then opened them a little. I saw a hollow face with a sallow complexion. The eyes darted back and forth, brief glimpses before looking away and back again. I noticed the same scraggly beard and unkempt hair I’d seen earlier. And then I saw them—the screws and the metal halo they held in place around my head. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, and waited a few moments before I found the courage to open them again.

The halo of silver-colored metal hung suspended about half an inch away from my head. I could see two of the screws embedded in my forehead about an inch above and outside of each eyebrow.

I stared with some combination of fascination and disbelief. How had my life come to this? How could THAT be ME? Al steadied the mirror for several moments and allowed the image to hang there in front of me. Who is that? Where is me?

Al must have seen the questions on my face because he said quietly, “Rich, you’re in there.”

“Where?” I whimpered.

“Rich, you’re in there,” he repeated. “You are not what you see in the mirror. What you see right now is pain and sorrow and a catastrophic injury that’s going to need a long time to heal. You see fear and loss and grief. You see a brace that looks horrible because of the horrible job it has to do. You see all of that, and you think you’re seeing you.

“But all of that stuff isn’t you. It’s all on the outside and it’ll all go away. Even the brace—four months is an awfully long time to have such a terrible contraption attached to you, but it’ll go away. None of what you see is you. You’re in there, underneath the unimaginable things that have happened to you.”

I asked him to pray with me. Al was good about that, a pastor who loved God with all his heart but didn’t just drop “Jesus” into a situation as though that would make it all better and you never should have been sad or scared in the first place because you should just have enough faith. But now he prayed with me, and as he prayed he also reminded me I wasn’t alone. He laid the mirror down, took my paralyzed, limp hand in his hands and prayed.

“Lord Jesus, be here with us. Rich is really scared right now, Father, and he has every reason to be scared. A terrible thing has happened and Rich doesn’t even know where he is anymore. He looks in the mirror and he can’t find himself, and instead he sees a hideous, frightening reflection of Evil.

“Father, hold Rich in Your hand right now. Let him know that Your arms surround him tonight, that he’s safe, and that he has not gone anywhere. Let him know that he’s right here, and that You know all about his battles. Remind him that Jesus felt the fear, knows the pain, and understands what it means to feel lost and alone. Father, help Rich to sense the powerful presence of Jesus in this room right now through Your Spirit.

“And Father, grant to Rich Your peace in this moment. He faces a long and difficult road, but help him to know he doesn’t have to travel that road tonight. Help him to let go, to fall into Your arms, and to be at peace.

“Father, I ask this, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

The room that had been filled with so much turmoil all day was unexpectedly quiet, still and peaceful. This dreadful situation wasn’t suddenly all OK. But it was somehow OK in that moment. Al and I talked a while longer. He reminded me that there were no magic, easy answers to this dilemma and that I’d likely encounter frightful images again. But he asked if I could let the peace in the room settle over me, just for tonight.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I’m really tired. I’ll be all right. Thanks.”

Al was sure right about one thing. My journey didn’t get magically easier that night. God never promised every season of life would be easy. He did promise we would never have to face any situation alone. That doesn’t make it easy—it DOES offer hope.

Hope provides a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The hope God offers isn’t the sort of wishful thinking so prevalent at birthday celebrations. “I hope I get a new bike” confuses hope with some sort of superstitious yearning. I hope my team wins the big game; I might refuse to wash my lucky jersey because I hope it’ll bring good luck. That’s not God’s hope.

God bestows through His grace the kind of hope that might be more accurately described as “expectation.” God doesn’t promise that I can wish for His peace; He promises that I can expect to receive it. God’s hope isn’t based on wishes or luck or maybe. God’s hope implies certainty rooted in grace and love.

That night I felt the power and the hope of the presence of Jesus. I knew He stood with me, walked beside me and even carried me when I needed it. The palpable tranquility that filled my hospital room that night drove away the fear of the monster in the mirror.

In a moment when I couldn’t see a way out, God provided. He didn’t solve the problem or make the pain disappear. But He did give me what I needed at that moment. He made that night, at the end of an awful day, a night of peace.

I wish I could proclaim that I never gave up again, never got frustrated or fearful, never forgot to lean on God’s promises. I wish I could say that after that night I always remembered that Jesus knew the pain and the fear and would always be with me. I wish I had been able to carry the peace of that night through the difficult days and weeks ahead.

But in fact I continued to give up and get angry and frustrated. Time and again I found myself at the end, lost and alone. No way to turn, no idea how to get out of this one.

And every time, God provided. Not an easy way, not an end to the pain. But Jesus was always with me. Somehow He helped me summon the strength to go on when I was certain I couldn’t go any farther. Every time, when I could find no escape from the fear, God provided.

If you’d like to read the story of Relentless Grace, you can order a signed copy here or purchase it at Amazon.com.

Did you enjoy this article? Please leave a comment, visit my website, and/or send me an email at rich@richdixon.net.

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Happy Monday! I’ve decided to add a feature.

For the next few Mondays, I’ll post a series of excerpts from RELENTLESS GRACE. You can read previous excerpts here.

I hope you enjoy them, and that you’ll encounter God’s invitation to give hope another chance.

THE MONSTER IN THE MIRROR (Relentless Grace Excerpt #5)

Intensive Care became my new home. Five days later a team of neurosurgeons fused the vertebrae, joining crushed and splintered bones with an assortment of metal plates and screws along with a chunk of bone transplanted from my hip.

I emerged from surgery encased in a “halo brace” to stabilize my neck while the fusion healed. This contraption surely descended from some medieval instrument of torture, a metal jacket attached to vertical rods that clamped to a metal ring around my head—my “halo.” Four screws secured the halo to my head. It took some time to assimilate that little piece of information—the thing was screwed into my skull!

As the fog of the anesthetic subsided I gradually became acquainted with this primitive apparatus that served as an inflexible exoskeleton to lock my upper body solidly in one position. Not that I could move much anyway, but this device added profoundly to the discomfort and frustration.

I had to learn to live with my new halo because we’d be together for four months.

The therapists tried hard to be friendly and encouraging, to make the best of an awful situation. Jokes, sports, movies, they tried every topic and tactic to distract me from the dismal circumstances and create a more pleasant and personal relationship. I wasn’t playing their game. I was miserable and had no intention of pretending otherwise. I couldn’t see beyond the halo, the catheter, the orthopedic stockings, and this bed that had become my prison. I did everything possible to make sure everyone around me understood the hopelessness, that efforts to help were pointless and doomed to fail.

I also had lost my voice, making a bad situation even worse. The surgeon accidentally damaged a nerve to my right vocal cord, so in addition to the paralysis I could speak only in a hoarse whisper. I really didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway, but communication now required significant effort. I effectively used my inability to speak as a perfect excuse to refuse any sort of positive interaction with anyone. I became increasingly mired in despair and anger.

A few weeks after my injury, an aide helped me to the P.T. waiting area. Quite by accident, he parked my chair near a full-length mirror. I didn’t notice at first, but then a movement caught my eye. I saw the mirror slightly to the left, not directly in front of me but still within the limited field of vision created by the brace that prevented me from turning my head. At first the reflection didn’t register. It took a moment to realize the image in the mirror was—ME!

I stared in horror at the ghost gazing back at me through sunken, glazed eyes. He slumped limply in a large, leather wheelchair. Clothes appeared to hang from his emaciated skeleton. The feet pointed at odd angles like those of a rag doll carelessly arranged; uncombed, greasy hair, hadn’t shaved in several weeks, his skin a pale, chalky white. The ghastly specter evoked memories of grainy black-and-white pictures from Nazi concentration camps, an empty half-alive stare that looks but doesn’t really see.

And the halo brace! Screws protruded from his head, every bit like the Frankenstein monsters from those shadowy old movies. The creature might have escaped his shackles in some secret basement laboratory, the wretched result of a mad experiment gone horribly wrong.

I stared, gradually assimilating details of the shocking spectacle. Fascination faded to disbelief and then terror as I began to comprehend my link to the gruesome image. I moved my right arm like a child might do to verify that the reflection in the mirror really somehow connected to him. Sure enough, the monster’s arm flopped across his body as well. That pathetic, half-human phantom was ME!

I’d never actually seen the halo brace. I guess I’d developed some sort of mental image of the awkward apparatus that immobilized my lifeless body, but I hadn’t really considered the appearance of this horrific contraption. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the ghastly image staring lifelessly back at me like some mistaken merger of man and mechanism. I wanted to escape from the pitiful, subhuman specter, but of course I couldn’t move.

Couldn’t run, couldn’t walk, couldn’t push the chair, couldn’t even turn away. That monster remained right there in front of me, and I was powerless to evade his ghostly gaze. As fearsome as the apparition appeared, I couldn’t force myself to squeeze my eyes shut and make him disappear.

I screamed in horror, or I did what passed for screaming with my hoarse whisper of a voice. No one heard my nearly silent wail, so I banged my arms in frustration on the sides of the chair. The spasmodic movements were the only volitional actions I could generate to attract attention and express the fear and anger.

Eventually one of the aides came to investigate the commotion. “Get me out of here,” I rasped. “Take me back to my room.” He didn’t realize the source of my distress, but he pivoted the chair and we headed back toward the elevator. As we turned away, I got one last glimpse of the monster in the mirror. I croaked another horrified moan.

Back in my room, no one could console me or make sense of what had upset me. “Just leave me alone! Go away! Let me alone!” I whispered through tears.

“What’s wrong?” asked Julie, my nurse. “What happened?”

But I didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to tell her about the monster, about the horror of the frightening image that confronted me, about the embarrassment of finally realizing what others saw when they looked at me. I just wanted to turn off the lights and hide my pathetic remnant of a person in darkness. “Everyone, just get out. LEAVE ME ALONE!” Now I was begging, “Please, turn off the lights and go away.”

In the cool darkness of the hospital room, I cried. How could all of this have happened? The entire period since the accident drifted past in a horrible, surreal haze—ambulance, emergency room, Intensive Care, surgery, recovery. Weeks passed in a fog of pain, sleep and drugs, until days had little definition and time either passed or not but it didn’t much matter. The shock of the entire episode blurred the distinction between reality and some sort of bizarre nightmare. I acted in the dream, aware but not really. The whole dreadful muddle seemed like a struggle to awaken from a dream within a scene in a bad movie.

But in that dark room, the fog began to lift. That ghastly, half-dead reflection wasn’t a character in a scary dream or the product of a drug-induced hallucination. The screws in the head, the chair that trapped me, the feet that didn’t appear to be connected to legs I couldn’t see or feel—that pitiful fabrication of some demented imagination was what remained of ME. I had become that gaunt, slumped, pathetic-looking monster. I cried.

I sat where they had left me, facing toward the window of my room. The blinds were mostly closed and I stared blankly at the window. I heard the door open quietly behind me. “Rich?” Julie whispered. “What can I do?”

“Nothing,” I murmured. “Please, leave me alone.” The door closed again.

I cried, stared at the blinds and cried some more. I should have been out of the chair and back in bed a long time ago. I felt dizzy, light-headed, and nauseous, I struggled to breathe, and my back ached. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t turn the chair or call for help if I’d wanted to. I was just there. Helpless. Alone.

If you’d like to read the story of Relentless Grace, you can order a signed copy here or purchase it at Amazon.com.

Did you enjoy this article? Please leave a comment, visit my website, and/or send me an email at rich@richdixon.net.

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God does not allow evil and suffering to continue because He does not love us, or is in some way detached and removed from us. God takes our suffering so seriously, that he took it upon himself on the cross. Tim Keller 

When I speak to a group about RELENTLESS GRACE, the questions are frequently penetrating and gut-wrenchingly honest. One question is asked more than any other. “Do you believe that God caused your injury?”

That’s tough to answer because I know what’s beneath the surface. A child gets cancer. A spouse dies in a senseless accident. Dreams and aspirations are destroyed indiscriminately, pain strikes needlessly, suffering endures pointlessly. And we want to know why. Why did this happen? Is it God’s will? How could He do such an awful thing, or how could He allow it?

I can’t speak definitively for God (which probably doesn’t surprise you) and I think there’s great danger in claiming to understand the details of God’s plan. We tend to create Him in our image and ascribe limited human motives to Him. We seek simplistic cause-and-effect explanations for complex circumstances. I’m convinced that His thoughts are bigger than our finite ability to reason.

However, my injury has prompted me to examine the question of God’s role in suffering and apparent tragedy. I’ve compiled an incomplete list of basic principles that cast some light for me into a troubling personal darkness.

• God’s purpose and plan are bigger than anything I can see or even imagine.

However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” [1 Corinthians 2:9]

• God loves me and never wants me to be afraid.

God is love … There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. [1 John 4:16(a),18(a)]

• God sent Jesus as the perfect sacrifice. No matter what my situation, I know I’ll spend eternity in relationship with Him.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. [John 3:16]

• I trust that God will never let go of me.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:38-39]

• I trust that God’s work in my life will ultimately come together for my good, even when I can’t see how or when that might be possible.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. [Romans 8:28]

• God made me along with the rest of His creation. His intent for me is for good.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. [Genesis 1:31(a)]

God loves me, wants only good for me, and will never let go of me. And even when circumstances are temporarily horrible, I know that He sacrificed His son to assure that I’ll be in His presence for all of eternity. This is the sum of my experience.

Childhood disease, random accidents, and indiscriminate suffering don’t seem to qualify under any reasonable definition of “good.” Neither do senseless, disabling injuries like mine. Therefore, my answer is that I don’t believe God causes these events. I do not believe that God decided one morning that this would be a good day to cause the suffering associated with a spinal cord injury and permanent paralysis.

Evil is present in our fallen world. Why does He allow it? I don’t know, because His purposes are bigger than my vision. But I know that He’ll always use even tragedy for good and that one day the pain will end and be replaced with endless joy.

That’s not an easy answer, but it’s all I’ve got. It’s enough for me.

I have been asked on hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. Billy Graham

I hope you’ll take a look at my new e-book titled STICKS AND STONES: Finding Freedom In The Face Of Criticism. It’s a free PDF download. You can click the link in the sidebar or go to my resources page to download.

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