A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God's Sovereignty

by Joni Eareckson Tada

The fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith, and has been in every generation. —John Stott

This book isn’t meant to be a detailed and exhaustive theological review of every verse in the Bible that seems to allude to miraculous healing. Much of why God does what He does and heals when He heals remains cloaked in divine mystery, and I certainly won’t be the one unwrapping those things in these few pages.

Because isn’t that the bottom line? That Jesus gets the glory, whether I jump out of my wheelchair pain free and tell people that my healing is genuine evidence of God’s awesome power … or whether I continue smiling in my chair, not in spite of my pain but because of it, knowing I’ve got lessons to learn, a character to be honed, other wounded people to identify with, a hurting world to reach with the gospel, and a suffering Savior with whom I can enjoy greater intimacy.

If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes. —Corrie ten Boom

Sharing about suffering is like giving a blood transfusion … infusing powerful, life-transforming truths into the spiritual veins of another. And you can’t do that with words only. Or, you shouldn’t. How can you learn about suffering except by feeling the pain yourself? But mercifully, none of those sixty-five students had to break their necks that day or endure mind-bending pain. They just had to have faith that the tears were real … which proved that the Man of Sorrows really can redeem suffering. For me and for them.

But there’s something earthy about my response to God that further sickens Satan. I believe he views disabilities as his last great stronghold to defame the good character of God. Suffering is that last frontier he exploits to smear God’s trustworthiness.

He knows I’m well aware that we wrestle not against the flesh and blood of disease and disability, but against powers and principalities that rub their hands in glee as they crush the hopes of disabled people, pushing them deeper into despair and discouragement (Eph. 6:12).

When you’re in a dark place, when lions surround you, when you need strong help to rescue you from impossibility, you don’t want “sweet.” You don’t want faded pastels and honeyed softness. You want mighty. You want the strong arm and unshakable grip of God who will not let you go—no matter what.

A sugar-coated Christ requires nothing from us—neither conviction nor commitment.

I need a battlefield Jesus at my side down here in the dangerous, often messy trenches of daily life. I need Jesus the rescuer, ready to wade through pain, death, and hell itself to find me, grasp my hand, and bring me safely through.

Because who can live without purpose? Who can survive without a reason to live? If you are God’s servant—and you are—you have been given a command. Many commands. And if He asks you to do something (and He has), you’ve just been given a reason for living every morning when you wake up.

blessing nevertheless. It’s a strange, dark companion, but a companion—if only because it has passed through God’s inspecting hand. It’s an unwelcome guest, but still a guest. I know that it drives me to a nearer, more intimate place of fellowship with Jesus, and so I take pain as though I were taking the left hand of God. (Better the left hand than no hand at all.)

God bids me that I not only seek to accept it, but to embrace it, knowing full well that somewhere way down deep—in a secret place I have yet to see—lies my highest good.

Yes, I pray that my pain might be removed, that it might cease; but more so, I pray for the strength to bear it, the grace to benefit from it, and the devotion to offer it up to God as a sacrifice of praise.

He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.

There is a war going on. All talk of a Christian’s right to live luxuriously “as a child of the King” in this atmosphere sounds hollow—especially since the King himself is stripped for battle. —John Piper

Here is what I believe: God reserves the right to heal or not … as He sees fit.

I am not skilled to understand What God has willed, what God has planned; I only know at His right hand, Stands One who is my Savior!1

So I stood firm on Ephesians 1 and other Scriptures that confirm God works everything in accordance with His plan. And that plan often (actually, most often) allows for suffering or quadriplegia to continue for good and well-considered reasons that we often can’t understand or discern this side of heaven.

But faith’s focus must always be Jesus Christ—and nobody draws close to Christ who doesn’t first share in Christ’s sufferings.

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). Christ and the manner in which He approached suffering is to be our focus, especially when the weight of our cross seems overwhelming.

at the end of the day, it’s not a question of who has the most faith, but what God in His wisdom, love, and sovereignty chooses to do.

The gospel of Luke reminds us to pray always and not give up.2 Jesus Himself urges us to keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking. God, in His grace and compassion, could yet choose to heal the boy. But it will be in His time, and in accordance with His mighty purposes. And for Linda, though her heart aches, that’s good enough.

Frost went on to add: “Those who prayed left the issue of their prayers with the heavenly Father in child-like confidence, repeating the prayer for healing until His will was known, and accepting the answer when it came, whatever it was, with submissive and trustful praise.”3

“It’s true,” I said. “He really did. The thing was, because I had delighted myself in God, He miraculously replaced my little private lists of wants and wishes with a list of His own. His desires became mine. And what are His desires? That the gospel go forth, that the kingdom be advanced, that the earth be reclaimed as rightfully His, that the lost get saved, that His glories be made known.

“That’s when it hit me, Lloyd. My wheelchair was the key to seeing all this happen—especially since God’s power always shows up best in weakness. So here I sit … glad that I have not been healed on the outside, but glad that I have been healed on the inside. Healed from my own self-centered wants and wishes.”

While I’m not saying God enjoys watching us struggle, His Word clearly indicates He allows wounds to prick and pierce us. But that doesn’t mean He has stopped caring. God expresses His care in different ways. As many have said so eloquently, sometimes He delivers us from the storm, and at other times He delivers us through the storm.

And what is His will? That you and I be in the best position, the best place, the timeliest circumstance in which God can be glorified the most. For me, that place just happens to be a wheelchair. That happens to be my place of healing.

So why do we still doubt? We know God is always shifting and pulling and pushing and making things happen behind the scenes. Why do we agonize? Why can’t we trust Him? Why can’t we rest in His “good, acceptable, and perfect will” for our lives? Each of us must experience a thousand miracles in our lives every day! Maybe it’s because in our heads, we can’t find mental wrapping paper wide enough to neatly package such truths. It takes faith to realize that our almighty God is moving miraculously in our lives every day.

Count His miracles today. Count the many narrow misses. Count the smiles and words of encouragement and expressions of gratitude sent your way today. Count the safety and well-being of your children and grandchildren. Count the miracle of being able to worship God freely in a country like this. Count the miracles of grace, of which 1 Peter 1:12 tells us that “even angels long to look into these things.” And thank Him.

I’ve found that an interesting thing takes place when you “fix your faith on Jesus.” You begin praying and asking for the sorts of things that He wants accomplished rather than zeroing in exclusively on your own private prayer list. You pray for the success of the gospel, even for mountains to be moved that His word might go forth. You pray for despair and discouragement to be alleviated in ten thousand obscure places around the world. You pray for souls to be settled and for God’s people to experience peace that is profound. You pray for lives to have intensity and depth; you pray for joy and peace in the church without a lot of parade and noise.

My affliction has stretched my hope, made me know Christ better, helped me long for truth, led me to repentance of sin, goaded me to give thanks in times of sorrow, increased my faith, and strengthened my character. Being in this wheelchair has meant knowing Him better, feeling His pleasure every day.

Christ did die to destroy sickness, and He will yet do it. But He does not say that He will, in a perfect sense, do it now. —Henry Frost

Henry Frost, a Canadian missionary statesman of an earlier generation. His book Miraculous Healing was first published in 1931.

1. Jesus is just as concerned about our health and healing today as He was when He walked this earth.

Hebrews 4:16 says, “So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need.”3

Christ in heaven has all power upon earth, and His present interest in the members of His body is as close and compassionate as it was when He was on earth amongst men.… If Jesus were on earth and I needed Him for healing, I should go to Him for this even as others went to Him; as He is not on earth, I cannot go to Him in person; nevertheless, I may reach Him by faith where He is in heaven, and since He is not changed in character, I may expect Him to heal where there is need, even as He used to heal.4

He didn’t heal people only to prove a point about His being Messiah; He didn’t look at men and women as guinea pigs for testing truth. He cared for them as His own. He considered them dear to His heart. He desired to work His will in their lives, not just for His benefit and others, but for the person He was healing. When He touched them with His love, He really meant it.

Henry Frost wrote: Christ is the eternal Son of God, and He is in His divine attributes ‘the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Hebrews 13:8). If therefore He loved in the days of His flesh, He loves now; if He cared then, He cares now; if He healed then, He heals now. It does not necessarily follow that He will do now all that He did then, or that He will do what He does now in the same way as He did then, for His purposes in some things are different at present from what they were in the past. Nevertheless, Christ is changeless in character, and we may be sure that He is infinitely interested in us and concerned about us.

2. Yes, we are healed by His wounds—but not necessarily immediately.

In Isaiah 53:5, we read these words: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

What Jesus began doing to sin and its results won’t be complete until the second coming. The purchase of salvation was complete and the outcome was settled with certainty (and note that the context of Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24 refers to deliverance from sin, not disease).

3. Our Lord Jesus has varied purposes for His own.

He has a plan and purpose for my time on earth. He is the master artist or sculptor, and He is the one who chooses the tools He will use to perfect His workmanship. What of suffering, then? What of illness? What of disability? Am I to tell Him which tools He can use and which tools He can’t use in the lifelong task of perfecting me and molding me into the beautiful image of Jesus? Do I really know better than Him, so that I can state without equivocation that it’s always His will to heal me of every physical affliction? If I am His poem, do I have the right to say, “No, Lord. You need to trim line number two and brighten up lines three and five. They’re just a little bit dark.” Do I, the poem, the thing being written, know more than the poet?

I’m sure you’ve heard it too—and I’ve already mentioned it earlier in the book: If you aren’t well, if you are suffering in any way, you are the one who is blocking that flow of healing power because of your hidden sin or your lack of faith. Because God obviously wants everyone well. Believe me, I have seen the wreckage, heartbreak, confusion, guilt, despair, and faith-destroying corrosive power of these hateful arguments for more years and in more lives than I care to count.

Be that as it may, sometimes, in His mercy and in His purposes, He will heal immediately. But at other times His healing will go on at a deeper level in the innermost parts of our being and not be fully realized in our bodies until we step into our new bodies upon our arrival at our Father’s house.

Christ did die to destroy sickness, and He will yet do it. But He does not say that He will, in a perfect sense, do it now, but rather, at a later time when He comes in power and great glory.12

Jesus has His own purpose for each of us. And whatever situation He gives us in life, we’re to follow Him in faith and trust.

God has different purposes for His own, and He shows Himself strong and gains glory in different ways throughout each of our lifetimes. And if He allows suffering in our lives, He does for very specific, very important reasons, and He does not do so lightly!

Each of these earthenware jars has been handmade by God Himself, our Creator and the master artisan—not stamped out in some mass-production factory in China. So as with all handmade items, we are unique. No two exactly alike. And if our very life purpose is to display the treasure we contain within, that display often works best when there are faults and cracks and chips in the pot! It is through these that the radiant, resplendent glory of Jesus shines through to the wondering eyes of the world.