However, after the surgery he was left with terrible pain. Unfortunately, over the next three years, Randy discovered he is allergic to pain medications.

     On his better days, Randy is now able to work and/or write about four to five hours.  On the worst days, however, the pain episodes---which last between 12 and 16 hours each time---are so intense he's not able to sit or lay down; his only recourse is to pace back and forth for those hours. 

     What we recognize is this: People watch us more in the trials than they do in our triumphs.  When we realize that, suffering can be an opportunity to show others our reliance on God is unaffected by circumstance. If God is the same yesterday, today and forever, then so, too, can our faith be that unchanging. Just not in our own strength.  Left to ourselves, most of us wither or become self-focused.  Trusting in God's love means sweeping aside the pretense that things are fine and acknowledging we need help. So every journey, every struggle, becomes a mirror-image of the salvation experience.  In every aspect of life, when we reach the place where we finally see we need help, when we see we need God, we suddenly discover He's been there all along.

    One final note: It would be wrong to characterize this physical battle as God-given.  There's little Biblical evidence to suggest God routinely introduces the tragic or terrible into His children's lives merely to accomplish some other task. While there may be singular circumstances where He may do so, God much more often takes what is already tragic, what is already terrible, and helps us discover ways to redeem it; even in instances, like this pain, where He chooses not to remove it.