Thoughtful Thursday -- Suffering and Satan

For today's Thoughtful Thursday, I decided to return to "A Place of Healing" by Joni Eareckson Tada and choose another passage that caused me to think.  Hopefully, it will stimulate you to some thought as well.

I've discussed this book here before, and if you've followed this blog for awhile, you know how much I've appreciated Joni's testimony through her paralysis, her cancer, and now through chronic pain.

Here's the passage that caught my eye this evening...

Referring to Satan, Joni writes, "I believe he views disabilities as his last great stronghold to defame the good character of God.  Suffering is that last frontier he exploits to smear God's trustworthiness.  The Devil relishes inciting people to complain, 'How could a good God allow my child to be born with this horrible defect?' and asking, 'How can I trust a God who would permit cancer to take my husband of only six months?', or wondering, 'Why would I believe in a God who includes Alzheimer's, and autism in His plans for people?'


Wow...She is so right.  And here is what strikes me, personally, about what she is saying.  Even after 3 1/2 years, there are still days when I find myself questioning, doubting, wondering how our family's life could have turned out so differently from what I had always expected.  Then I begin to sink, and my feet get stuck in the mire, and before you know it, I'm slogging through my days with my head and my heart sagging.  And you would think, after all this time, that I would instantly recognize that as an attack from Satan.  But I don't. Sometimes I have to be nearly immobilized by the muck before I realize what's going on.  But once I do finally wake up to it, it's almost a relief.  "Oh, of course ... this is just Satan doing this to me."  Then, through God's grace, I can beat back the enemy and get back to living the way I should while I'm waiting.  After all, he's already been defeated, right?