How 'I can't do anything' became joy

No time is a good time to start hurting, but 2 a.m. might be the worst.

I had had mild shoulder discomfort for a few months, felt a twinge of pain during exercise one evening, and woke up at a bleak 2 a.m. moaning with intense pain that worsened in the days that followed.

This immobilizing pain brought my life screeching to a halt overnight. Forget putting in a full day’s work—I couldn’t even pick up a pen, type a text, put on my socks, or fork my food. The hours turned into days, and I wondered how long this might last, what caused it in the first place, and what could hush the scream in my shoulder.

No one had answers, and nothing relieved the pain.

I thought about my regular schedule, my backup list of things to do, and my low-key options on a sick day and, with a thud, reality hit me. I couldn’t do anything.

It should have been overwhelming, even terrifying.

Instead, I began to sense a calming lift that spread through my spirit like yeast rising in dough. It was gratitude.

A prayer group I’m in had recently looked at Matthew 14, when Peter begins to sink in the waves and cries, “Lord, save me!” We had observed that overwhelming situations don’t stretch us beyond capacity, they just reveal what’s been true all along: We can’t do anything on our own, we depend on God for everything. Our abilities are gifts of grace from God’s good hand, which ironically can blind us to how helpless we are without Him.

I certainly saw this now. I usually bustled confidently between home, church, and work, loving to “do” and get things done. Now, in my empty stillness, I recognized all of these as God’s gifts of grace, not packages of my doing. My sudden injury created a long list of things I couldn’t do anymore. Still, I saw that as an endless list of gifts He had given me in the past, and His extreme generosity blew me away.

Added to that, I saw more gifts of grace piling up because of my injury:

• my family, who patiently served and comforted me in a thousand ways
• my bosses at work, who kindly let me take time off
• the quiet haven of home, where I could rest and suffer
• and ibuprofen, which finally calmed the flare-up of my now-diagnosed tendonitis and called for plenty of rest ahead.

Alone on the couch with my Bible, I found a verse that held this truth like a ring holding a diamond, and it became mine: “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect” (Psalm 18:32, KJV).

It is God who girds me with strength. Within the definition of the Hebrew word for strength is the simple word “ability.” Here I saw that it is God who gives me even the smallest ability to lift my arm, hold a plate, or flip a page. Rather than feel bitter because I couldn’t do that, I marveled at how excessively God had knotted His grace into my life.

My ability to see and understand this was, itself, a gift, and I quickly became grateful for the crushing shoulder injury that had peeled away my busy “doing” to reveal the hidden presence of God. This understanding of His goodness came to me so differently than taking it in from a sermon or book; instead, it infused my spirit like an IV dripping truth straight into my bloodstream.

Even though the battle was still challenging, and there were hours when I wanted to escape the pain (and let my poor sisters know it), the reality of this renewal remained behind it all. I lost everything for a time and found unexpected peace, gratitude, and joy in knowing that my God truly is my all. Oh, the surprising dividends suffering can yield!

Now that I am mostly back to my usual bustling self, my shoulder whines just often enough to remind me that His enabling strength is in every move of my muscles and breath of my lungs. It’s not an indirect supply connecting me to a distant source; God Himself is my ability, my strength, my life.

Whether you are abounding with abilities or hampered by limitations, thank Him for being your life. Sometimes, it’s when you can’t “do” that He knits your heart more closely to His, and you find that you really do have all you need, because you have Him.

“It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.”