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My testimony

11.02.06

by Lois Swagerty

Many of you here know what it is like to face physical challenges. Some of you have lived your entire lifetime with disabilities from birth. Others have endured health conditions that have gotten as bad as they will get, and some of you face the daily knowledge that your condition is growing worse.

It's true, we're all dying, in a sense, but we try not to think about it.

I am a relative newcomer to the fellowship of suffering. For the past 5 years I've gradually scaled back from all the activities that used to define me. When my back went out, I cut back on my music ministry here at Harbor. When my arms were injured, I gave up piano playing altogether and reduced my teaching load at school. In the past year, throat pain has curtailed my singing and speaking activities. And this past summer, I developed carpal tunnel symptoms in my right wrist, which slowed me down on the computer.

None of these conditions was life threatening. I took up writing and my natural mouthiness started paying off in new directions. God seemed to be re-directing my energies.

Then I had a heart attack.

It's one thing for life to let you down, with its inevitable disappointments. It's another, more painful realization when people let you down, people you've counted on in various ways, large and small. But when your own body lets you down, it feels like the ultimate betrayal.

Life as we know it comes to a grinding halt, and only eternal truths are left: God is good, and he is in charge. A verse I learned in Sunday school decades ago keeps ringing through my head: "My times are in his hands." I think we made a clock for the craft project that week.

I'm here to tell you that when my body let me down, God was still there to hold me up. And of course Doug. He's been a wonderful comfort and strength through it all.

Some of you know that my life's verse has always been, "Life is uncertain-eat dessert first." Well, when William Jackson from the uptown church called to ask my favorite verse for Thanksgiving, I actually gave him one out of the Bible: Lamentations 3:22-23.

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

This I believe.