2. Breathing Room
ICU, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND HOSPITAL,
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND,
OCTOBER 1967
Last night, the nightmare came in person.
It was after the lights were out. Was it a hallucination from all these heavy drugs they’re pumping into me? A demon? I don’t know, I don’t care. I just know it tried to kill me. It slipped into the room (I could hear its hooves clicking on the linoleum), and placed a large concrete block on my chest, crushing me. I couldn’t breathe. I started screaming and a nurse rushed in. “Get it off! Please, get it off!”
“Joni,” she said, “it’s only your hands on your chest. That’s all. Your hands were crossed on top of your abdomen. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Easy for her to say. Maybe next time, she’ll be too late. Maybe next time that thing will smother me.
FORTY YEARS LATER
At the best of times, quadriplegia is confinement.
At the worst of times, it is near suffocation.
Claustrophobia is an adversary I’ve had to deal with since those earliest days in ICU after my accident, strapped in upside down and so tight to my metal and canvas Stryker frame that all I could move was my head—slightly. In one terrifying episode a few days after my accident, right after they had flipped me facedown on my Stryker frame, I lost all ability to breathe at all and had to be resuscitated.
Yes, sometimes the reasons for the claustrophobia are physical.
Just recently, in the hospital for nine days with double pneumonia, my old enemy rose up with a vengeance. Try to imagine lying flat and not being able to raise your head and cough when you feel that tightness and gurgling in your bronchial area. Imagine not being able to sit up in bed or at least raise up on your elbows. Sometimes it’s like an invisible hand pressing an invisible pillow over your face.
It’s worse at night. It always is.
Thankfully, Ken put two chairs together and slept by my bed, so I could at least quiet my heart knowing someone was there to help sit me up every time I needed to expel phlegm.
But claustrophobia isn’t always about congested lungs or oxygen deprivation. Sometimes the circumstances of life hedge us in so tightly, restrict us so severely, press us so relentlessly, that we feel like we’re being crushed.
Back in 1980, I came back home to the family farm after making the movie Joni. It was an especially difficult season in my life. I was extremely thin, emotionally exhausted, and still brooding over some of the movie scenes we’d just filmed. Reliving those horrific days of my injury and the early years of my paralysis brought some troubling feelings to the surface of my heart—issues I thought I’d resolved years before.
One evening I was in bed watching an old movie on TV, The Bird Man of Alcatraz. In one of the scenes, Burt Lancaster releases one of his birds through the bars of his cell, watching it take wing and soar into the wide blue sky. Suddenly the expression on his face turns from a look of pleasure and affection for the little bird to one of sheer horror. As the bird takes to the skies, the terrible reality of his fate suddenly dawns on the prisoner. The bird is free, but you’ll never be free. Your circumstances will never change. You’ll always, always be confined. Until you die.
Just that quickly the walls of the farmhouse bedroom closed in on me, and I panicked, screaming at my sister to turn off the movie. I couldn’t get my breath, and she had to sit me up in bed and press on my abdomen to help me to breathe. I had never felt so claustrophobic. I had never experienced the circumstances of my life binding me like that, squeezing the air right out of the room.
Although the Lord has granted me more mobility since those earliest days—including more maneuverable power wheelchairs and driving my own van on the California freeways—I have never escaped that recurring feeling of the walls drawing together around me, shrinking the room, constricting and asphyxiating me.
But I’m not the only one.
Hedged In
I come back to Job again. Here was a man (who better?) who knew what it meant to have the walls of grief and desolation press in on him, pushing him to the edge of sanity. As with that younger Joni in the Baltimore hospital so long ago, the long nights brought him terror and dread rather than sleep and rest:
When I think my bed will comfort me
and my couch will ease my complaint,
even then you frighten me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
so that I prefer strangling and death,
rather than this body of mine.
(Job 7:13–15)
Sometimes our life circumstances leave us feeling like we have nowhere to turn. We can stay inside or go outside, we can drive to the mall or out into the desert—but it doesn’t matter, because our grief comes with us. Feeling himself wrapped with heaviness to the point of asphyxiation, the patriarch wrote:
Why is life given to a man
whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?
(Job 3:23)
Hedged in.
Pressed into a space so constricting that you feel like you can’t even get your breath. Have you been there?
The four walls of a sick room can feel terribly confining, even if you are only in bed for a short time. When I was stuck in a hospital room for over a year, those walls felt like a jail. I resonated with the prophet who wrote, “He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains” (Lamentations 3:7).
There is a lot of lament in that verse.
But there is also comfort. Do you see it?
Who was the stone mason who walled Jeremiah in? Whose hedge and whose walls are we speaking about here? This is God’s hedge. Those are God’s walls. The prophet didn’t understand his situation, but he knew Who had placed him there. Job acknowledged that it wasn’t bad luck or random circumstances that had hedged him in; it was God Himself … though in his sorrow he couldn’t imagine why.
That thought comforts me now, but I’m not sure it would have comforted me in the early days of my injury. I would have thought God was a sadist or simply didn’t care about little Joni in Maryland.
But now, forty years into my quadriplegia, I am at peace with the ways and walls of a sovereign God. He has hedged me in and put me where I am. He has placed me, not misplaced me. He knows exactly where I am and how to care for me.
Here is a ruby, hard-won. If you find yourself in a confining situation, it is God who has confined you. He is the One who has surrounded you and hemmed you in. It is only when we view our restricting circumstances as being placed there by God’s hand that we find courage to face, accept, and even embrace the wall and the hedge.
Walls are cold, hard, and foreboding. Robert Frost wrote, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” And hedges? They are dense, unyielding, and thorny. But the love of your God is supreme and matchless, and He only confines you for a wise and timely purpose. For those who believe in the love and the wisdom of a sovereign God, even a heartbreaking confinement can be a place of building trust.
In fact, it may become the widest place you have ever experienced.
Hard-Pressed
“We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed” (2 Corinthians 4:8).
The apostle Paul was another prominent member of the Boxed In Club. “I’m hard-pressed,” he told the Corinthians.
When you and I say something like that, we might mean we have a term paper deadline coming up, a cluster of nagging household tasks to attend to, or maybe even some health issues or legal problems that trouble us. But when Paul said “hard-pressed,” he wasn’t using the term lightly. It wasn’t as though he was saying, “Whew, we were really up against it there for awhile.”
A few pages earlier in the same letter, Paul described circumstances so oppressive and pressure so intense that it was “far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life” (2 Corinthians 1:8). He actually teetered on the edge of giving up. The pressure was that bad.
What kinds of pressures? We’re not told. Probably a baker’s dozen of serious, critical issues layered one on top of another. Legal pressures. Financial pressures. Health pressures. Relationship pressures. Spiritual warfare pressures. Paul had to deal with slander, lies, emotional stress, loneliness, betrayal, threats, physical abuse, a failing body, plots on his life, and fierce—even Satanic—opposition wherever he turned.
In the King James Version, Paul says he was “pressed out of measure, above strength” (2 Corinthians 1:8). Why? It doesn’t really matter. He wanted this rich, sophisticated, urban church in Corinth to taste a small slice of his life, to understand that their apostle had been so burdened that he actually thought he wouldn’t live through it.
Yet in the very same letter, Paul could say, “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed” (2 Corinthians 4:8, emphasis added). That last word … crushed. In the original language, it literally means “cramped” or “hemmed in.”
But how could that be? What did he mean? How can you be encircled, pressed in, and hedged about and not be cramped? How can you be confined, shackled, chained, locked in, and closed up in a dungeon and not be hemmed in? How can you live large in a confined area with strict limitations?
The fact is, a high hedge cannot shut out our view of the skies, nor can it prevent the soul from looking up into the face of God. That’s what happened to me in the hospital during that long, long year of confinement. As the days and weeks went by, I earnestly wrestled with God, pleading and praying to Him. “O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up” (Psalm 5:3 KJV, italics mine).
Looking back, it was dreadfully difficult. Yet in another sense, I experienced more freedom than I had ever known. It was yet another of those inexplicable ironies in the kingdom of God. Yes, there were stretches of boredom, frustration, tears, and sadness of heart. But it was also a rich and deeply spiritual time which I wouldn’t trade for anything. Because there is so little else to see, the hedged in Christian cannot afford to hang his head. He must look up. And it is that Christian who may possibly apprehend God more fully than the disciple who moves about freely and unconfined.
I have a friend who went through deep waters several years ago. He described the weeks and months that followed as the darkest days of his life. Feeling as though he was drowning in depression and grief, he sought the Lord with a desperation beyond anything he had ever experienced. As a result, he learned a new way to pray in those days—on his face on the living room carpet, arms outstretched, as dependent as a little child.
Looking back on those days, my friend recalls how narrow his world had become, with the suffocating darkness pressing in from all sides. His Bible became as thin as a half dozen of his favorite psalms. But he also remembers an indescribable connection with God, as if a larger channel had been opened between them. It resulted in a new sense of God’s presence and an ability to discern His voice. His new standard for prayer was his nose buried in the carpet fibers, his arms out in front of him, palms up. He learned that the lower he placed himself before God, the more he expressed his utter dependence on the Lord for everything, the sooner God’s miraculous work of healing and restoration began in his life.
Hard-pressed and hedged in? Just remember that where the Spirit of the Lord is … wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And hope. And light. And even beauty.
Responsible for My Response
Paul may not have been responsible for the circumstances that so totally overwhelmed him, but he was responsible for the way he responded to those circumstances. And how did he respond? He didn’t groan, “Oh, for Pete’s sake, here we go again.” Instead, he said, “For Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
I like that.
It’s for Christ’s sake. His glory. For His good name and reputation.
Paul wasn’t fixated on his chains; he was focused on his Savior.
Consider the incident in Philippi described in Acts 16. The magistrates handcuffed Paul and Silas to a scourging pole and gave them a brutal whipping. Piling humiliation upon humiliation, the Philippian authorities then took the bruised and lacerated missionaries and placed them in stocks in an inner cell of the city jail.
There they were, stuck in a wet, stinky dungeon tucked away from the light of day. Paul must have been faint. Silas must have been sick to his stomach. Every bone ached and their fresh wounds oozed.
Yet deep in that dark, confining place, walled in by stone, secured in stocks and chains, they do the incredible. At midnight, the darkest and loneliest hour, they began praying and singing praises to God. They weren’t just humming along lightly or mumbling their prayers between moans and groans. No, this must have been a loud, rich, two-part harmony. In spite of the thick walls and heavy doors, Luke says that the other prisoners “were listening to them.”
Their words—those improbable songs of praise rising out of the most severe confinement—won the battle against Satan in that midnight hour. As it says in Psalm 106:47:
Save us, O LORD our God,
and gather us …
that we may give thanks to your holy name
and glory in your praise.
To whine or grumble, fret or murmur, complain or lament, would have been to invite defeat in that terrible hour. And who would have blamed Paul and Silas if they had sputtered a nasty remark or two?
But the record shows that they didn’t. They didn’t succumb in defeat with thoughtless, ill-tempered words. They triumphed in a victory of praise. What a witness to the other prisoners! What a testimony to the jailer. And what an encouragement to countless generations of oppressed believers who have read that account and reached back for a second wind.
We are responsible. Maybe we’re not accountable for some of our trials, but we are accountable for all of our responses. If Paul and Silas could sing choruses in a dungeon, you and I can offer praise wherever life places us. This very moment.
This isn’t to minimize the suffering, or the suffocating feelings of those who find themselves cornered, confined, and pressed in by anguish, physical limitations, or even the literal walls of a prison. Listen, I’m a quadriplegic. I understand. My heart especially aches for people who suffer with chronic physical pain. Oh, how hope is needed!
The Narrow Walls of Pain
My friend Christy has multiple sclerosis and diabetes. If you know anything about those conditions, you know that this woman deals with ceaseless pain. You can see it in her eyes. What I like about Christy is that she isn’t about to be beaten to a pulp by this double-whammy of a medical condition. She has started a support group to help other Christians who wrestle with pain, and she also writes a regular column for the encouragement of others.
That’s all well and good, but because she’s taken charge—stepped into a role of spokeswoman and leader—many onlookers see her as a spiritual giant. How does she respond to that? In one of her recent columns she wrote: “People assume that no matter what happens, you’ll face it with the faith of Noah, the patience of Job, and the courage of David. That is a fine goal to be sure, but more often I find myself reacting like Peter … sinking and crying out, ‘Lord, save me!’”
Bless her for saying that! You may not have MS or diabetes, you may not be a quadriplegic like me, but you definitely have days when you feel like you’re sinking, drowning, going down for the third time. Try as you will, you simply can’t meet everyone’s expectations. Bills pile up, checkbooks don’t balance, you were too late to file an extension on your taxes, the store won’t take back your return item without a receipt, and then the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, the checkout clerk forgot to bag your eggs—the main thing that took you to the store to begin with!
Small things. Almost silly things. But when you are already hedged-in, hard-pressed, and maxed-out trying to deal with nonstop pain, you begin to feel like you’re drowning. Like Peter, you’re sinking in the stormy waves, and you cry out, “Lord, save me!”
And then there are those times when pain seems to take over everything. Another friend, Michael, wrote to me:
Two years ago, tumors were pinching my sciatic nerve and I was forced to my knees in tears. I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. I shut myself in a room, lay on the floor and shouted to the Lord, “I am not leaving here until You do something. Kill me, heal me, but don’t let me suffer like this!” It was a little later, and then I heard a still, small voice saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
Michael was encouraged by John 14:27 because when God gives peace, He is imparting a sense of the Prince of Peace, His Son Jesus. Michael tells me he can endure almost anything, as long as he knows Jesus is “lying on the floor” with him. And as Psalm 119:49 assures, God’s comfort envelops Michael every time he remembers a promise like that from the Word:
Remember your word to your servant,
for you have given me hope.
My comfort in my suffering is this:
Your promise preserves my life.
That doesn’t mean that God lets you out of your cramped corner in life, that the pain goes away, the paralysis is healed, or the depression suddenly evaporates. But it does mean that in the tightest, most confining of life circumstances, you and I can find a wide place to stand in the sweet presence and sustaining might of a God who loves us beyond measure.
I can identify. For me, when the pain doesn’t go away, I’m quick to remember promises like John 14:27. My comfort in my suffering is this: the promise of God’s presence preserves my life. The walls may be God’s walls, but the hope I experience is God’s hope!
Despair that rises in a direct and vertical line to God opens us up to change, real hope, and the possibility of seeing God as He really is, not as we want Him to be. Once we give an inch, God will take a mile. He’ll take a million miles. He’ll soar on the wings of the wind from heaven to where you are to show you who He is, to embrace you with His love.
Here is the ruby, hard-won. Just knowing He’s with me gives me peace, hope, and comfort. I may be confined, but I am not cramped. I have freedom to move when there is no freedom to move. I have breathing room when I’m about to suffocate. I stand in a wide, spacious place when I’m impaled by a thorny, encircling hedge of pain.
Resurrection
The circumstances Paul described in the province of Asia—whatever they may have been—took him right to the edge. Different translators of Scripture reached for the right combination of English words to describe what he had experienced.
We were completely overwhelmed; the burden was more than we could bear. (PHILLIPS)
We were so utterly and unbearably weighed down and crushed that we despaired even of life. (AMPLIFIED)
It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. (THE MESSAGE)
We were excessively pressed beyond our power, so as to despair even of living. (DARBY)
Why did God allow the apostle and his company to be pressured and pressed to the point of suffocation? We don’t have to wonder. Paul immediately provides us with the answer.
But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. (2 Corinthians 1:9–10)
That we might rely on Him.
Period.
In the heavy darkness of one of the blackest nights, at the very moment when the strain pushed Paul over the ragged edge of despair, something broke loose. Like summer thunder. Like a sudden rush of wind across a spring meadow. Like a towering tsunami of light.
Resurrection power.
Life in a graveyard.
A sunrise at midnight.
Hope where no hope could be.
A cluster of California poppies on the dark side of the moon.
A surge of strength in utter weakness.
The resurrection power of the indwelling Christ.
We think of Jesus, the eternal, omnipresent, all powerful Son of God who willingly stepped into the constraints of time and space, the constraints of a tiny Roman province called Palestine, and the constraints of a human body. Eventually, betrayed into the power of His enemies, they constrained Him to a cross—literally nailed Him into place while adversaries mocked and demons danced. And then the very Author of life gave himself over to the ultimate constraints of death, tightly wound burial cloths, and a sealed tomb.
But it couldn’t hold Him.
He broke free of death, pushed aside the stone, and demonstrated once and for all to everyone who has ever been boxed in by circumstances that there is life—room to breathe, room to run—in union with Him.