I just read a remarkable article. A “Kentucky mother of two went to the hospital last month to receive what she figured would be a routine treatment for a kidney stone. Lucinda Mullins, 41, ultimately ended up losing both legs and both arms from the elbows down.” The cause was sepsis.
The article goes on to say that “Mullins apparently took the bad news in stride, leaning into her faith and family.” In her words, ”I just said these are the cards I've been dealt, and these are the hands I'm going to play.” Mullins noted that if "one person … can see God from all this, that made it all worth it.”
What is it we see? We see God’s sustaining power shining through her unbelievable positive reaction to a horrifying personal disaster — living the rest of her life without hands or feet.
None of us knows what’s ahead for us in this year, but of this we can be sure: There are going to come troubles and difficulties we sure wish would never come. So let’s ask the question, what do the people around me stand to learn of God by virtue of how I react to the troubles coming my way? Are my reactions going to magnify his goodness, even so, or make him out to be apathetic or indifferent to our life’s troubles?
We can be sure that Lucinda Mullins had this figured out long before her tragedy struck. And we too need to win this battle before it’s ever fought.
How so? The key, it seems to me, is to flat out reject each and every thought of discouragement, dissatisfaction, or disappointment. Give such thoughts no place whatsoever in one’s reactions to anything. Then it means to always walk in praise and thanksgiving to God no matter what we are going through, come what may.
