10. Life Worth Living
With Jesus, even in our darkest moments, the best remains . . . and the very best is yet to be.
CORRIE TEN BOOM
To Whom It May Concern:
I hate my life. You can’t imagine the ache of wanting to end your life and not being able to because you’re a quadriplegic and can’t use your hands.
After the doctors did surgery on my neck, I refused to wear a neck collar. I hate it too. Nobody understands, and nobody will listen to me when I tell them I don’t want to live. People feel sorry for me, and I can’t stand it. I can’t even go to the bathroom by myself.
I don’t have the energy to cope. I don’t have the strength to face the next day. I want out.
A depressed teen
What would you say to this teen? What sort of advice would you give her? Now that you’ve come this far, I certainly hope you would not suggest she consider ending her life prematurely!
It’s safe to say you want to help. But how much time and support are you willing to invest in her? It would take a lot of effort to sit by her hospital bedside and listen, to hold her hand and genuinely care. She might spit abuse at you; she might turn her head on the pillow and sullenly ignore you; she might even scream orders to a nurse to kick you out of her room.
Could you, with supernatural love, turn the other cheek? Would you be able to care with no strings attached? Would you decide to come back the next day with a magazine and a package of Oreos and just quietly sit at her bedside to watch whatever TV show is blaring on the wall?
That girl is one of millions—depressed, disillusioned, and crying out the unspoken question: Where is life that is worth living? Remember, the answer to that question comes not in the form of legal pronouncements, but in people.
Finding Answers in People
The suicidal teen who wrote the “To Whom It May Concern” letter? I know her story well. She begged her friend Jackie to bring from home her mother’s sleeping pills or her father’s razors. She daydreamed of the time when she could sit up in a motorized wheelchair and power it off a high curb. (Just my luck, she thought, I would only sustain a brain injury and worsen my misery!) When her friend Jackie stubbornly refused to cooperate, she waited at night until no nurses were around so she could thrash her head on the pillow, hoping her neck would snap at a higher level and cut off her breathing.
I know this teen’s story so well because that suicidal girl was me. When a diving accident paralyzed my body, that’s not all that became paralyzed. All I wanted was to escape. To escape into daydreams. To escape into sleep. To escape into television. And if I had been able, to escape into death.
I had no pride when it came to bowing out of life. Ironically, at one time I had said, “People who cut their lives short are weak-minded, weak-willed wimps who have spaghetti for a backbone. Why can’t they pull themselves up by their bootstraps, hold their breath, and just charge through the suffering without a lot of mopey complaining!” That’s how I felt . . . until I was the one who became emotional spaghetti.
I am not the only one. Millions more don’t want to suffer through anything, whether it be bad health, bad finances, bad pain, or bad relationships. Escape has become the great American pastime, and our culture doesn’t help. Our media-oriented society tries to sell us one image after another of the good life free of pain and struggle. When a society buys into that culture of comfort, the lie that suffering does not have purpose takes root in homes, hospitals, and nursing home lounges where life and death decisions are made.
Thankfully, I never was able to engineer that final escape.
Instead I found better answers than an escape hatch. Those answers came in the form of people who loved me. Mrs. Miller, the mother of a high school classmate, visited my bedside once a week. I was embarrassed to show anger in front of her, and besides, she brought home-baked sugar cookies. A boisterous and hardy high school friend named Diana gave up a semester of college to stick by my bedside. Her commitment impressed me, and I liked her corny jokes. A boy named Steve loved the challenge of answering my questions about the Bible. I tolerated him because he was younger than me.
People like these took away my desperate urge to escape. In fact, I found their company much more satisfying than any early exit I could have orchestrated. Steve, for instance, was so caring and persistent. I’ll never forget the time I cornered him and whispered, half-crying, “It’s so . . . hard.”
He didn’t say a word, but picked up his guitar and sang an Elton John tune, “Your Song”—“My gift is my song and this one’s for you.” The words of the song contained no answers whatsoever for my despair, but the tender and innocent expression of compassionate love on his young face was all the healing I needed, at least for that moment.
Mrs. Miller, Diana, Steve, my sisters—these people connected me from one healing moment to the next until I finally surfaced out of my suicidal despair. I looked back into the fog of that funereal depression and realized that I hadn’t found answers so much as I had found friends.
God Understands
There’s hardly a soul who has ever lived who hasn’t wrestled with the overwhelming urge to escape suffering permanently. In fact, the strongest, most stalwart saints are sometimes the most likely candidates for ending it all.
Even a powerful prophet like Elijah discovered he had spaghetti for a backbone. When the wicked queen Jezebel heard through the grapevine that Elijah had wiped out hundreds of her prophets, she went after his neck. Elijah got weak-kneed and ran for his life. When he reached the desert, he gave up. He didn’t even have the courage to do himself in—he begged God to perform the mercy killing on him: “‘I have had enough, LORD,’ he said. ‘Take my life.’”
Here’s a curious footnote. God had used Elijah to perform spectacular miracles just the day before. He had announced the end of a drought. He was the people’s best friend. Elijah had nothing to complain about. Why in the world would he of all people want such a permanent solution for such a little bit of depression?
But that’s the point. It doesn’t matter whether you are terminally ill and on your last legs or hunch-shouldered with a bad case of the Monday morning blues. Whether you are a grandmother facing a dead end in a nursing home or a young man with cerebral palsy facing a similar end at the bottom of a bottle of pills. From super saints to quads like me, no one is immune.
Elijah would understand. More important, God understands. Circumstances may vary from human to human, but we can draw comfort from the fact that all of us are as vulnerable as Elijah. If you look closely at how this mighty prophet surfaced out of his suicidal despair, you’ll also see that answers came to him in the form of people. Actually, a Person.
God Himself ministered to the prophet. God handed him food, maybe even something as tasty as Oreos. God gave him sleep, and I’m sure Elijah’s rest was as quieting and soothing as Steve’s gentle song. God even offered a listening, empathetic ear. The record shows that the angel of the Lord touched Elijah and agreed that “the journey is too much for you.” He then presented Elijah with new work to do, and sometimes switching focus onto others is just what the doctor ordered.
How can I help you see? The lesson of Elijah is for all of us. Just as surely as the angel of the Lord personally gave the prophet a sip of cool water and laid him down to rest, the Lord touches our lives through the people He places around us. Mrs. Miller, Diana, Steve, my mother, and my sisters certainly were the hands and heart of God to me. And if there is no Steve or Diana, God can personally come through for you, giving you strength out of nowhere.
Elijah was able to turn the corner and get back on track, thanks to God. I also knew I had turned the corner out of despair when I stopped wrenching my neck on the pillow and started to pray.
My prayer during those midnight moments when the faint fragrance of friendship from my sisters, Diana, and the rest was still in the air? God, if I can’t die, show me how to live.
Life Is Worth Living with the Person, Jesus Christ
A prayer like “show me how to live” assumes you can see at least a few steps in front of you. But sometimes you can’t see a blessed thing. As we read in Isaiah 50:10 (LB), “If such men walk in darkness, without one ray of light . . .”
That pretty much described Dorothy Dalenberg. Total blackness. No way out. Darkness so thick that there wasn’t a single ray of light. Dorothy isn’t in a coma, doesn’t live in a wheelchair, and isn’t facing a terminal illness. But her black and burdensome circumstances are the sort most people can identify with—maybe even you.
Dear Joni,
I injured my neck, which resulted in chronic pain and terrible headaches. Suddenly activities I took for granted came at the price of pain, tears, and frustration. Pushing a grocery cart put my neck in spasms. Cleaning the sink left me in bed with pain pills. I was frequently incapacitated, often going to the emergency room for pain shots.
As I fought to cope, my world unraveled. I had sinus surgery, totaled my car, and was told I have fibromyalgia and a glandular disease. God seemed so distant. I could not feel the peace He promised.
I became very depressed. I wasn’t living. I was existing from pain pill to pain pill. No hope. So tired. Gradually I decided life was not worth living.
I began to think of how I would end it all. I felt my family would be better off without me, but I hung on to their love . . . or maybe their love hung on to me.
I didn’t see it at first, but God was there all along. In the friends who listened to me, cared for, and accepted me. Through the care of my doctors and a Christian counselor, I learned to control my pain, not let it control me. I discovered my worth is not dependent on what I can do or how I feel. My security comes from who I am in Christ.
My life will never be the same. But God has given me a burden to reach out to others in life’s dark hours. Pain I will always have, but now I know He will never leave me or forsake me.
Dorothy Dalenberg
Somewhere in her darkest moment, Dorothy uttered a prayer not unlike my “show me how to live.” And Isaiah 50:10 (LB) was handcrafted for people like her and me: “If such men walk in darkness, without one ray of light . . .” She felt the thick blackness, and she knew there was not a single ray of light anywhere. Some would say that’s a good signal to end it all. But read the rest of the verse (italics mine): “If such men walk in darkness, without one ray of light, let them trust the Lord, let them rely upon their God.”
When Dorothy reached out in the blackness, not expecting to find a thing—not even a light switch to shed some hope on her bleak circumstances—she found the hand of Someone right in the midst of her darkest hour. God showed her how to live when He showed her Himself.
You will only find life worth living if you reach out in the darkness to discover the hand of Christ. Maybe that’s why Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” Rays of light are first and foremost found in Him. And listen to what Jesus says not only about light, but about life. He says, “Do not worry about your life,” and “I have come that [you] may have life, and have it to the full.” He also says, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Even one of His disciples said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Life is intricately and intimately linked with Jesus. In fact, Jesus is life—He said so Himself. So when we look for life worth living, we must not look for it in happy or heartbreaking circumstances, health, or even relationships. Life is in Christ. That’s why Dorothy, and countless others I’ve mentioned, believe life is worth living. They count the courage and love, friends and smiles, patience and perseverance, poems and music, peace and hope—they count all of this as life that God gives, life that is worth the pain.
Back to the Beginning
Remember at the start of this book I told you about my three-week stint in bed with pressure sores? How I described the bird feeder my husband, Ken, hung outside our bedroom window, and the many sparrows that came and visited? I told you how my depression made me envious of the sparrows flying and fluttering so carefree.
During one of those long, dreary evenings in bed, I was reading my Bible and came across the little lecture Jesus gave on sparrows. He was speaking to His disciples about the future, and when He sensed fear rising in their hearts, He reassured them, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
I glanced at the bird feeder and smiled. I could understand Jesus noticing an eagle or a falcon or a hawk falling to the ground. Those are important birds created by God—the kind worth attending to. But a scrappy sparrow? They’re a dime a dozen. Jesus said so Himself.
Yet from thousands of bird species, the Lord chose the most insignificant, least-noticed, scruffiest bird of all. A pint-sized thing that even dedicated birdwatchers ignore.
That thought alone calmed my fears. I felt significant and noticed. Because if God takes note of each humble sparrow—who it is, where it is, and what it’s doing—I know He keeps tabs on me. For my remaining days in bed, every bird that visited the feeder served as a joyful reminder of God’s concern for every detail of my life.
As I told you in the first chapter, my pressure sores healed. In the twenty-five years since that summer, I’ve also faced chronic pain and stage 3 breast cancer. I’m writing this on the other side of fifty years in a wheelchair. Fifty years. And yet there will inevitably be days when I’ll still face fear. Worries will press in. Doubts will assault. Depression will lay me low. And you don’t have to be in a wheelchair to identify.
We both will do well to remember this: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” If the great God of heaven concerns Himself with a ragtag little sparrow clinging to a bird feeder outside my window, He cares about you.
And Forward to the End
One day, your banged-up, bruised body won’t matter a whole lot. Right now, it screams for your undivided attention, but if you place your trust in Christ, the day is coming when your suffering body will take a back seat. I once heard someone say, “At present we wear our bodies on the outside and our souls on the inside. But in heaven, we will wear our bodies on the inside and our souls on the outside.”
What else could the Bible possibly mean when it says that one day we will be clothed in righteousness? We will wear our righteousness as if it were a beautiful garment. I’m sure that’s why the Bible also tells us to get ready on this side of eternity by clothing ourselves “with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Be patient. Don’t give up. This life is not over yet. It will get better. One day, you will enjoy the most perfect final exit, one orchestrated by the Master Designer Himself.
This is how the psalmist speaks of our final destiny in Psalm 49:15:
But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead;
he will surely take me to himself.
Questions for Discussion and Reflection
Living Well
How would you summarize the message of this book?
How do you think your church could get involved in the lives of people facing issues relating to life and death? Consider what the church could do for the following:
• someone who is terminally ill
• a family with a loved one in a coma
• a quadriplegic living in a nursing home
• a mom whose twins both have disabilities
Why do you think some people are slow to get involved? What would keep you from trying any of the above ideas you developed?
Apart from involvement in the lives of individuals, what do you think is the role of the church in the societal debate on issues surrounding life and death?