Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.
Jeremiah 32:17
The worst cases have both an MS-like and an AIDS-like clinical appearance. The most difficult thing to treat is the severe pain. Most have abnormal neurological examination. 80% of cases are unable to work or attend school. We admit regularly to hospital with an inability to care for self.
(Paul Cheney, Professor of Medicine, Capital University, USA, Testimony before the FDA Scientific Advisory Committee, 18 February 1993)
Despite being in my forties, I still live with my parents, both of whom are in their seventies and upon whom I remain very dependent. I live in an area that I do not really know and where I know very few people. Scary? Yes – and no.
As a Christian, I know that my future is secure – through no merit or works of my own. My salvation is all of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree’ (1 Peter 2:24). I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know what will happen in the coming months and years, and I am naturally concerned about the future. But I do have a Saviour, and I know that my future is safe in His hands.
However, it is still not easy from day to day – and the Bible nowhere promises that it will be! At numerous times during these last two years I felt that I had reached ‘the verge of Jordan’. Every day is a real struggle. I can see how things will be in the long term (i.e. heaven!), but I can’t at present see how things will work out in the short term. Yet I have become increasingly aware that I am in God’s hands, and that is the safest place to be; therefore I have to trust Him to provide. I also know that a day is coming when the Lord Jesus will return. I will then see my Saviour and have a new body, one that works and is not falling apart!
Do you have that assurance? When in this world, the Lord Jesus lived a perfect, righteous life, in obedience to His Father—the life that we, because of our sin, could never live. He died on the cross, bearing the eternal punishment of sin for all those who put their trust in Him. He rose from the grave, conquering sin, death and hell.
The Bible states that ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’ (John 3:16).
For those whom God has saved by His grace, we look forward to the time when ‘God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away’ (Revelation 21:4).
All the way my Saviour leads me:
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy,
Who through life has been my
Guide? Heavenly peace, divinest comfort,
Here by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well.
All the way my Saviour leads me:
Cheers each winding path I tread;
Gives me grace for every trial,
Feeds me with the living bread.
Though my weary steps may falter,
And my soul may thirsting be,
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! a spring of joy I see.
All the way my Saviour leads me;
O, the fullness of His love!
Perfect rest to me is promised
In my Father’s house above.
When my spirit, clothed immortal,
Wings its flight to realms of day,
This my song through endless ages:
Jesus led me all the way.
(Fanny J. Crosby, 1820–1915)
