Hope Heals In The Midst Of SufferingSample

"Forging hope in progress and postponement"

{KATHERINE} To the joy of many, I miraculously woke after brain surgery and left ICU after 40 days. But my “new life” in rehab also came with piercing sorrow and fear. The first time I saw myself in a mirror, I stared in disbelief. My left eye turned down and in toward my nose, and I was seeing double. Due to partial facial paralysis, my right eye couldn't blink or fully close, and drainage seeped out of it.

My trachea tube didn’t allow me to speak, but eventually I was given a letter board, where slowly I typed out, “I am the same on the inside! I am the same on the inside!” I had the joy of communicating, but my own questions still haunted me: What if everyone thinks I have the IQ of a small child? What if I am deemed an unfit mother for my baby? What if I never leave?

Though I was tormented and trapped in a body that didn’t function as before, I felt a deep comfort that God would help me. He knew I was in this broken “earth suit” and couldn’t fully communicate my heart to anyone. I had a profound reassurance that He would make it OK. I just needed to be still and wait. I spent two years in brain rehab before being released.

In Egypt, Joseph is falsely accused of rape and imprisoned. Though God brings him favor with the prison guards, he is still confined. After interpreting two prison mates' dreams, they are released, and Joseph asks one to remember him to help him get out. But Joseph is forgotten for two more years.

Eventually, he is freed and given a seat of great honor, but those two more years in prison must have left Joseph wrestling with despair as he hoped for freedom. As you follow Joseph’s story, you see how God was clearly at work in the postponement of Joseph’s plans, just as He is in yours.