Written by: Erica Sawyer
I am paralyzed from the waist down from a car accident when I was five. My spinal cord is injured at level T-10; I use a wheelchair as a result and have post traumatic stress from the accident as well as the chronic stress of living with a disability. Sometimes little things stress me out. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with pain. Somedays I need to rely on my husband for encouragement more than others.
My husband is disabled from serving in Iraq, although you cannot see the scars, he battles a demon called severe post traumatic stress with traumatic brain injury along with a milti-level spinal fusion. Sometimes little things stress him out. Sometimes he is overwhelmed with pain. Somedays he needs to rely on me for spurring him on more than others.
We married each other knowing full well each other’s limitations and challenges. We married each other because we made a choice to be there no matter what; no matter what the evil one tries to throw at us, we have made a choice to fight it out. This is God’s plan. The adversary does not like it.
The evil one does not want us to be joyful, because that brings glory to God. The liar does not want me to believe the truth. He wants to fill my head with lies about myself, with lies about others.
The demons do not want smiles in the midst of trials. So they make some days more difficult by throwing obstacles our way…fiery darts he knows will burn.
We know you don’t show up in a red suit with horns and a smell of sulphur…no, you show up in the form of bad thoughts, something hurtful someone says, an inconsiderate waiter, an inaccessible bathroom, and when my doctor’s office lacks compassion in sending me a prescription while travelling for supplies I need.
You showed up when all the glass bottles of soda we bought shatter on the ground because they fell through the container they were in, or you showed up as an out of control driver on the freeway, intended to test that prayer of patience I prayed for earlier. You showed up as “not good enough” when the hotel failed to provide a shower chair.
You show up at the most opportune moment to strike. To pounce. To burn.
You show up as the very thing I am trying to battle. I don’t want to think that way anymore and you know it, I don’t want to react like that again, so you test it. You do everything you can to get me to think like that, to act like that. You’re crafty in the most craftiest of ways.
But wrapped deep within our hearts is a promise of love capable of extinguishing any flame thrown our way. A love that overcomes all things. A love that casts out all fear. A love that casts out all darkness. A love that comes from an eternal provider. The infinite lover.
Love is a choice. And we choose to make the most of every opportunity…We choose to get up every morning preparing for the demon’s schemes. We read scripture, pray, listen to sermons and wait for God to move us. We wrap our souls around the third strand on this journey we call marriage, and that third strand is Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit. Because without that third strand holding us together, on the days when Jacob and I are both broken, it is only Jesus that holds us together.
“A rope of three strands is not easily broken.”. Ecclesiastes 4:12
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