Watching for the Morning: Vaneetha Risner on Hope amid Suffering

Hi friends! I'm your host, Stephanie Daniels, and you're listening to the Johnny and Friends Ministry podcast. We're sharing hope as we answer real questions about disability. Join us every week for an honest and encouraging conversation, along with practical ways to include people with disability in your church and community. So, grab a seat and let's jump in! Today we're welcoming back Vanita Reisner, author, speaker, and a dear friend of the ministry. If you've heard her before, you already know the depth of wisdom and honesty she brings when it comes to suffering, faith, and the goodness of God. Through much hardship, Vanita has learned to cling to Jesus with a quiet, fierce hope. She invites us into that hope in her new devotional, "Watching for the Morning." And today we talk about what it means to keep waiting, trusting, and believing that morning will come. If you or someone you love is living with a disability or chronic suffering and wondering if God sees you, I pray this episode reminds you that He does and that you're not alone. Welcome back to the podcast, Vanita. Thank you so much, Stephanie. It's so good to be here. Well, I am so excited that you're here and we'll just dive right in. For those unfamiliar with your story, I know you've been on our podcast before and you've shared a lot, but for those who may be unfamiliar, can you briefly share some of your background with us? Yeah, so I was born in India and when I was three months old, I got polio. Now, at the time, the polio vaccine often wasn't given in India at that young age. And so the doctors didn't give me that vaccine, but they had never seen polio because polio had pretty much been eradicated a decade before with the vaccine. So they didn't know what it was. They gave me cortisone to lower my fever and within a day or two, I was a quadriplegic because that polio spread through my body. The doctor said, "There's nothing we can do at this point." And they encouraged my family to leave India because there's very few services in India. And in India, disability is really a curse. So they just knew that would be a hard life for me. So my parents left India. My dad took a job in England. We moved from England to Canada. I spent a lot of years in Canada in the hospital, actually. I had 21 operations by the time I was 13. Lived in and out of the hospital one time for a year. So I grew up pretty angry, though, honestly, at God's Stephanie because I thought everybody else's life is wonderful and perfect and my life is really hard. Fast forward, though, a bunch of years. I was in high school, got involved in FCA, heard the gospel. First, didn't really want to accept it was for me, but then God really spoke to me through Scripture one day, committed my life to Christ and thought, "Okay, my life is going to be good. Everybody has one really hard thing and I've had mine." And so I expected that and I would say for 15 years, my life was wonderful. And then it started to fall apart. I had four miscarriages. I had an infant son who had a heart problem, had surgery at birth, but the doctor took him off his medicine because he was doing so well a few months later and he died very unexpectedly. And then I was diagnosed with post polio, which means my body is going backwards. So after all those surgeries, I had been able to walk, but now I use a wheelchair more than I walk. My body is really going backwards, so I can't use my hands very well. Then six years after that diagnosis, my husband at the time left me for someone else and I raised two adolescent daughters as a single parent. More recently, just dealing with the more profound impacts of post polio with a lot of weakness and struggling to do everyday things. So that's sort of my background on where I come to suffering is from a lot of different angles. Yeah, wow. So you absolutely are no stranger to hardship. And I think that's interesting because I feel like I felt that way too. It's like, "Oh, okay, I've experienced my hard thing in life and so the rest is just going to be turning up roses." And we can be so disillusioned sometimes when we do come to that place where we're like, "Whoa, things aren't easy. They're not coming up roses and I'm struggling." Thank you for sharing. I'm excited to know how the Lord has been speaking to you and encouraging you through all of that. So what led you to write this devotional and what does the title "Watching for the Morning" mean to you personally? I can kind of assume with everything that you've just shared, but why did you choose this title? Well, some things. One, I chose the title based on Psalm 130, which I really love, verses five through six, says, "I wait for the Lord. I wait and put my hope in His word. I wait for the Lord more than watchman for the morning. More than watchman wait for the morning." And I feel like so often in the midst of struggle when Psalm 130 is a beautiful lament, we're waiting for the morning. Like it is pitch black. And that's all we're doing is we're watching and our eyes are straining, like looking for God. And sometimes we don't see Him because it's black. And yet we're watching for these rays of light to come through. So I was actually thrilled I got that title, to be honest. Stephanie, because with book titles, you think, "Okay, all the good titles are gone." And when I saw that that was available, that was actually really exciting for me. But you also asked why I wrote the devotional. It was kind of interesting because B&H, the publisher approached me about writing it and prayed about it and decided to write it. But I thought it was going to be this reflection of all the things I had learned about suffering through the decades of losing my son and the unwanted divorce and all of those things. I thought it was going to be a comfortable book to pull together some lessons I had learned along the way. And God had a very different plan for me in writing this devotional. I signed the contract and my life fell apart physically in a way that I just didn't expect. Non-polio-related things kept coming up. Almost all of them were not polio-related. Thyroid disease, hyperthyroidism. They thought I had Grape's disease. Then I fell, got a cyst on my spine. I was in a wheelchair, couldn't walk for a year. I was in excruciating pain with a cyst that actually attached to the nerve. And then had some GI issues where I was afraid to leave the house, had so many different tests. They didn't figure it out. Got COVID, was brain fog for six weeks in bed. It was so many things, Stephanie. I just thought, God, what are you doing? I wanted to write this comfortably and I was scrambling to even meet my deadline. And I thought, oh, I can do that. And God was like, you're going to need to trust me with this devotional. I am not wanting you to just look back at my faithfulness. I want you to experience my faithfulness as you write. And I've never had to do that before. None of my other books have been like, I am in the trenches. I don't know if I can get out of bed to write. And I was so behind and stressed. And yet it was this beautiful time for me. Like, okay, in writing about depending on you, I am depending on you. Yeah. So that was actually a really deeply moving experience for me. And some of these entries, they were real time suffering. I don't usually do that with writing. I write about things that have happened because you have more perspective rather than as they are happening. Well, that makes me think of a couple that I was talking to at Family Retreat just a few weeks ago. They were the camp pastors that week. And they were saying that they were coming to the end of a series they had been going through. I believe it was a Timothy Keller book and it was about hardship and just all the things. And they said, don't ever teach a course on hardship because this opened up all kinds of cans of everything in our lives. And they felt like it was because they said yes to teaching this. So the wife told her husband, she said, don't ever volunteer to teach this course again. So I could imagine signing up to write a devotional about waiting on the Lord in the midst of darkness was definitely an exercise for your own trust. Yeah. It's funny that you say that, Stephanie, because my mom said to me, I think you need to say to the Lord, my next book is on joy and I need some more material. So I'm not writing on suffering. I've gotten enough material on that. So good. I need some more firsthand experiences. Yes. And we laugh about that. But in a serious note in the midst of suffering is a deeper joy than joy in the absence of suffering. Gosh, I was reading a part of your devotional and you talked about that. And you were mentioning a woman that had had several miscarriages and then a stillbirth. And then she lost her baby that she did have. And she was talking about a deeper joy. And like you said, you can't know that deeper joy. And it's like, I want to know that deeper joy. But I feel like you can't know it without going through the suffering and the hardship, which can be scary, right? Is that ever a thought that you have? Like it's scary sometimes to say yes to the unknown, to step out, you know, step out into the darkness. It's perplexing, but also their safety because it's Jesus. And he's so safe, you can trust him, but it can be a little scary. Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting, Stephanie, because I think it is scary. But I think the longer you have walked with the Lord, the less scary it is. Like I think it's scarier for people who have never suffered. When they say, I don't know what, I don't want to say yes to the Lord because I don't know what that's going to bring. Right. Because they haven't experienced the fellowship in the fire. Experiencing the fellowship of Christ's sufferings is really a deeper level. For example, I remember when my oldest daughter was just a baby, I went to hear a woman talk about her own daughter's death. She had a two year old daughter who died and she shared with us what to do and what not to do if a friend's child dies. And I took lots of notes. I remember I came home and I went into Katie's room and I knelt by her crib and I said, God, I can't do that. Don't ever ask me. I remember when I did it, what I did, I walked into the room. I heard her strength and I said, I don't have that. So don't ask me for that because I can't do it. And when God asked me to do it, nobody signs up for it. Nobody wants that. And yet there was a grace that I could never have anticipated that would have terrified me. And so I'm thinking people who are listening are like, I wouldn't want to do that. Sure. It's terrifying, but as God calls you to do something, He equips you to walk through it. So the unknown is terrifying for all of us because we don't have the grace at that moment. We just see that other people have it and we think, okay, we don't have it. But yet when God calls us to do it, He will give us what we need, which is kind of amazing because in all of the different kinds of suffering, I would say there has been a time when I would have looked back and said never. I mean, I remember when my ex-husband left decade before, I was like, I could never walk through that. I cannot be a single parent. No, I can't do that. That cannot have my name on it. I don't want people to think that God is assigning these things to people to strengthen their faith as much as He just knows what is ahead. He has a purpose for all of our suffering. So it's not to fear Him like He's trying to hurt us, but knowing that it is all going to be good and He is going to walk through it. Yeah. Yeah. Something you just said made me think of another part just down from that woman's story, John Piper is saying that often God is doing 10,000 things in your life and we can just see two or three or maybe four of them at a time. But as you're speaking, I'm thinking of the things that He allows in our lives to shape us and make us the people that He is calling us to be. This leads me to my next question. You faced tremendous suffering, polio, the loss of a child, a divorce, chronic pain. How did those experiences shape your view of God's presence in suffering? Well, I would say for some of those experiences, I didn't feel God's presence always. Like I felt like I was kind of in the dark and that was specifically after my son died. I didn't understand lament. Kind of this functional theology that it was all going to be good. And so it rocked my world. I pulled away from God. So I didn't feel God's presence. I wouldn't say I walked away. I say to people, I looked away. I leaned away. I didn't want to look at God. I didn't want to talk to God. And so I didn't sense His presence with me for a long time through that. And it was really only when I turned back and said, I want to look at you, God. I want to talk to you in this that I recognized He had been there all along. But because I had turned away, I couldn't see Him. Right. And I think often that's the subtle turning away that makes us feel so alone. And then sometimes in the darkest of night, when we're watching for the morning, we do feel alone. Like we can't see anything. And so we have to rely on the fact that God is with us, whether we feel these warm, like, oh my gosh, I'm being enveloped in God's love or not. But yet in the rear view mirror, I can 100% see, wow, God was carrying me. God was walking with me. There's no doubt in my mind. But for people who are listening right now who are like, I feel alone. I understand that, but you are not alone. And sometimes our feelings are not reality. The reality is God is with you. And I've learned through suffering more and more to sort of recognize these hints of His presence that I don't know if I would have seen before. And some of that is asking God, show me how you're loving me today. Show me you're here. And then opening your eyes to it. Because so often I think we pray in the morning, like we ask for all these things. And then we close our Bible and we go on with our day. We're not even looking for God to answer. Whereas when we look, there are so many ways God is speaking to us and showing us that He loves us through scripture, through a song on the radio, if people listen to radio, through a sermon, through a friend's phone call, through a new flower in your garden. Like there are ways that God is speaking to us. And sometimes we're just not listening. Yeah, yeah. I love that. I always love looking for little messages from the Lord. I was walking my dog the other day. I'm always stopping and taking pictures of things because I'm like, gosh, you can see Him in everything if you're looking. I've got so many pictures in my phone of new things that are growing with the little Magnolia blossoms and looking at the little intricate details of how He's forming those blooms. And I'm like, oh my goodness, Lord, if you pay that much attention to the pattern on that little growth on that tree, how much more do you pay attention to me and my life? So I love that. He is intricately acquainted with us. He's in all the things that we are walking through. What are some of the things that the Lord has shown you about Himself? I would say there's so many things. I think one of the biggest things we talked about that He is with us and with me, whether I feel Him or not. And the other thing He's shown me is that there is a purpose to my suffering. And that, at first to me, sounded a little callous like, oh, God doesn't really care about us. He just wants our lives as an example. But that is not true. God cares so deeply about us. He wants us to be involved in what He's doing. And there is no greater thrill in life than to feel like you're hearing from God and that you are really being folded into God's story of redemption for other people. So I think the combination of God is with me. He cares so deeply about me. And I get to participate in God's bigger story. Suffering will not be wasted. And I think that's such a key thing when we're going through something hard, is knowing that it's not wasted. It's not random. It's not that God is somehow going to pick up the pieces, but it didn't mean anything. When I think it's purposeful, it really changes how I view going through it, thinking, OK, there is a purpose to this. And that helps me find joy even in the worst of things because I know I may not see it as I go through it. I almost never do. But a little bit in hindsight and one day in glory, recognizing that these are preparing us for an eternal weight of glory that is beyond all comparisons. So that means there's a purpose on earth and there is a purpose in heaven and there is a reward waiting. So there's so many layers of purpose and there's this deep sense of presence. And I would say those are the things that I have really learned in my journey with. Man, that encourages me. And I think about even some of the comments that I've seen on our YouTube channel. So many people are going through so much and they may feel buried in the complexity of the situation. But if we can pull back a little bit to look at it and say, you know what, God, I know there's purpose in this. I may not understand it or see it now, but I'm trusting you that you are going to bring beauty from these ashes that I find myself in. That's really encouraging to me, Vanita. Thank you for sharing that. Oh, yeah. Well, how did writing this devotional affect your own spiritual journey? Did any kind of new revelations or inner wrestling's kind of surface as you were writing this? I'd say there were some inner wrestling's six years actually after my ex-husband left. I remarried this amazing man named Joel. And so our lives have been pretty smooth, I would say not. I mean, I have post-polyo. Things were hard, but they weren't extraordinarily hard. And then when I started writing the devotional, they became that. So I had to lean into lament in a way that I had not in a long time. Like, I think lament is this way we get to talk to God, that when things are expectedly difficult, I don't know if I go to that inner place of wrestling. Like, how long, oh, Lord, will you forget me forever? And there were times, especially just no medical answers. Doctors didn't want to operate on my back because the cyst was attached to my nerve. And that could have serious repercussions if they made a mistake in the surgery. There was just a lot of issues with it, with my own anatomy, with post-polyo. And just thinking, God, am I going to live with this suffering forever? And I did have surgery last year just to end that story. And they were able to remove the cyst. So I am able to walk. You know, I do deal with, yes, praise God. But I do deal with pain still, but not that kind of pain. Like, that was a really horrific pain for me. And there were times in the midst of that that I thought, can I live with this for the rest of my life? Every time I have to move, like transfer even, like I was screaming in pain. And the thought of that day after day after day really wore me down. And I wrote about that in some of the entries here. I just had to once again lean on God and say, OK, even if that happens, I want to trust you, even though I am still in this moment begging you not to let that happen. Oh, Vanita. I mean, how do you continue to love the Lord and trust Him when you're in excruciating pain like that and you don't see things really changing? That's a great question. You know, the person who has taught me that more than anybody is Johnny because she does that better than anybody I have ever known. Yeah. So I almost feel like she needs to be answering that question because she is so good at it. She just has this unshakable confidence in God. And I don't put myself up with saints like Johnny in terms of this unshakable confidence, not because of who God is, but because I can wrestle and question and, like, sometimes go back to, do you love me? Do you care? Do you see? So I ask those questions in the midst of it. I don't just kind of say, OK, this is fine. This is your plan. I'm going to roll with it. I'm like, what are you doing? And so that is part of my wrestle with God in the midst of it. So how do I deal with it? I keep crying out to Him and I keep asking and I keep begging and I keep saying, OK, God, maybe I don't need to see the full picture because I don't want to know if this is going to go on for the rest of my life. I don't want to know that. But a lot of it is give me strength for today. Like you're not asking me to figure out the rest of my life. Yes. And you're not asking me, are you going to deal with this pain or this hard situation forever? You're just asking me to deal with it today. And for today, I can trust you. Today I have the grace. Today I know you're with me. And so that's often how I deal with it when I'm in so much pain is this is today or even this is for five minutes. This is for this next little bit. Yes. Rather than taking the whole long rest of my life view, I have to take it in little chunks. Yes. Can I make it through this? Can I make it through that? Yeah. That's so incredible. I love that. And it does remind me of some of the things that Johnny has said and that we've shared recently. Somebody was like, the Bible doesn't say that the Lord won't give you more than you can bear. In our response to that, we were just saying, you know what Johnny does when things feel overwhelming and when the cross feels too heavy, Johnny leans into the promises of God and she reminds herself what the word says, what the Lord has promised in his word. And I also love when she talks about when nights are hard, she worships, she sings hymns, worships her way through those moments. Yes. You know? And she finds that she makes it through to the morning. I love practical things that we can do to get through the hard. Yes. You know, when things feel just like, I'm not going to make it. When we initially spoke, you talked about the Lord shaking what can be shaken. And I would love to just kind of chat about that a little bit more. When you think about it, the blaring question for me is, why does he shake us? I know he's refining us and making us more like himself, but sometimes when you're at your wit's end and it feels as though the shaking is endless, what can you say to the person in that space to encourage them just to remain faithful and courageous? Yeah. I would say one, I don't know the purpose for each person, but I know that there is a purpose to the shaking. Whatever is happening in it, there is some incredible good God is bringing from it because God is not cruel and God would not let us suffer one second more than we need to. So recognizing that God is not trying to hurt us, he only loves us. So recognizing that even though it doesn't feel good, somehow one day we will thank him for it. So that's one thing. Then recognizing that when God shakes what can be shaken so that what is unshakable remains, and I'd written that in my journal entry I mentioned to you that I talk about in this devotional because it felt like everything in my life was getting stripped away and I just wrote that in my journal. When trees are shaken, that's what makes them stronger. Trees that have never been through a storm, they're twig-like, but the trees that have been through hurricanes, their trunks are strong and sturdy, their roots go deep, and the roots go deep because they need to find water and they need strength. And so for us, that's what shaking does for us. It shakes us, but it makes our roots go deep because we cannot handle all the storms by ourselves. Right. It's the Lord. Right. And so we have to depend on God. When life is pretty good, I can have a pretty perfunctory quiet time. Honestly, I can open the Bible, read my Bible, reading plan, go, "Thank you, Jesus," and move on with my day. And not every day is this earth-shaking time with God, but there is so much more of a clinging to God and needing His Word and feeding on His Word and like Johnny singing hymns, reciting Psalms. Like the Word becomes what feeds us in a storm. And we have lots of other food when we're not in a storm. There's lots of other things that keep us afloat, and we don't see this desperate need for God. And so that's why I think looking back on my life, the things that have shaken me have changed me. What is unshakable, which is Christ. That's what remains. I look back and I see Jesus over all of my suffering. And so that's why I think God does allow and bring this shaking into our lives. It's to make us strong, to help us know Him better for our faith to be deeper. But I don't want anyone to hear this and think, I'm like, "Okay, so just ask for the shaking." I don't ask for the shaking. Right. God brings it when He does, and we need to cling to Him in it, but it's hard for anyone listening right now. If you're in the midst of a storm, it's hard. And all you can do is basically take refuge in Jesus, because the winds are howling. I love what you shared, and I've never thought about that either, how the opposition, that resistance in a storm, makes a tree stronger. We've had these devastating floods here in Texas. Yes. And I just think about sometimes situations in our lives can feel like that rushing in of the water. I mean, those rivers rose to 26, 30 feet in no time, and sometimes situations in our lives can feel like that. And I'm just thinking, it's so devastating, but in those times, that's when we're being tested, we're being shaken, when things rush in in our lives like that. What have you found to be helpful when the onslaught from the enemy, or the things the Lord is allowing in your life, what have you found to be helpful when that feels so constant? I would say Scripture is the most helpful thing to me in the really, really hard moments, because sometimes we can't feel His presence, and we have to rely on His promises. So we need His promises to hold on to. Once again, Johnny memorizes Scripture so beautifully. Every time I talk to her, she has a Scripture to share. She's so full of the word. Yes. And you realize once the Bible becomes part of your language, it changes you, because you use the very words of God to speak to God, and those words have so much more power than any other words ever. Yeah. These are the very words God has given us, and there is something really powerful about reciting Scripture and knowing it and clinging to it. It becomes fresh even if you've memorized it, because different pieces of it come to you at different times. You might lean into one word or one way it's said differently. It doesn't have to be this sort of mechanical, "Okay, I'm just going to say this verse." It's not like a magic formula as much as it is a way to talk to God that God has given us. He can highlight one word out of it that changes how we feel about the verse even. Yeah. That makes me think of something I read this morning in 1 Samuel. It's when the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant, and they set it next to their God. They came in the one day, and their God had fallen over in front of the Ark. They put their God back, and then they came in the next day, and their God had fallen, again, prostrate in front of the Ark, and his head and his hands had fallen off, and they were broken. That just showed me, "Lord, nothing can stand in your presence. Nothing that I'm afraid of or worried about, sickness or death, nothing can stand in your presence." His word is so good. It's alive. I'm learning his character just through reading it. So that is a very helpful tool that we have. I'm thinking, as I've just had the chance to sit and chat with you, and knowing all that you've walked through, and some of the things that we walk through as believers, how is it so easy for us to magnify our issues and not magnify the Lord? Have you ever dealt with that? Yes. I think whatever's in front of us is what we magnify and what we focus on. I have an iPhone, and when you put it on portrait mode, whatever you focus on is super crystal clear, and then everything else is blurred. And I think when we just keep looking at our problems, we magnify them, and God is blurry in the background. So it's like, what are we focusing on? What are we looking at? Because if we're focusing on something that really isn't good for us to just keep our eyes on, it's going to set us completely off course. We're focusing on what's wrong. Our troubles, and a friend of mine calls it "fellowshipping with your troubles." Instead of fellowshiping with God, you're going to magnify them over the Lord. What is our lens focusing on? I think about the Israelites, when they sent the twelve men in to spy out the land, they looked at different things. Ten of them said there's giants. That's all they could see were the obstacles. And then two of them said, "But there are good things, and there is God." God has called us to this, and there are great things in this land. But they saw the same thing. They were there together the whole time. So it really is, what do we choose to focus on in our trouble? Do we choose to focus on the things that are not the way we want them to be? Especially our fears, because that's what they focused on, is their biggest fear, which was the people there, versus God's provision, which is what Caleb and Joshua focused on. It's God's provision. And I think that's the biggest difference in terms of magnifying God, or magnifying our issues. I love that so much. Psalms 34, 3-5 says, "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together." I sought the Lord, and He heard me and delivered me from all of my fears. And they looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed. If there's anything that should encourage us, it's that. And there's so many other examples in Scripture, where you see the Israelites going into battle, and they send the worshipers in before them, and oh, the difference that that makes for them. God is so good, and I think worship is a great weapon that He's given us. It helps shift our focus from the temporal to the eternal, and it helps shift our attention from the problem to the problem solver. He's just so, so kind to give us that. Are there any other Scriptures that have anchored you when life has felt its darkest? Yeah, there's so many Scriptures that have anchored me. That's actually one of the things that I put in this division, almost 15 Scriptures to memorize. Some of them are prayers, some of them are things we say, some of them are things that we just need to remember. One of my favorite ones you just kind of alluded to, which is 2 Chronicles 20-12, we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you. And that we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you is a prayer I pray all the time. It may be one of my most common prayers, because there's so often what I don't know what to do. And for listeners who don't know that story, Jehoosh Shaphat was the king of Judah, and this whole army was coming against him, and he had no idea what to do. So they prayed, and then they said, "For we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you." It ended up that God told them to put a praise and worship team, basically, before the armed soldiers. Like, these people are dancing and singing to the Lord in front of the armed soldiers, and the enemies killed themselves in front of this army. They didn't do anything. It just shows us we tried to figure out how to fight our battles, and God has, like, put me first. Like, look at me, and I will fight your battles for you. I wish that that was always my first action. When I hear this, when I'm reminded of these stories, I'm like, "Oh, yes, that's right. God, I'm supposed to trust in you. I'm supposed to worship you when I'm going into battle, but it's just so difficult." We see the temporal, but, oh, man, that's such a powerful story. I love that story, and that's why I love that verse, because the more you have memorized it, or for me, then I say it, and then my heart follows with it, because my first option is really to panic and figure it out myself. Like, I joke that I go to Google before God. I'm putting into my search bar, "What do I do with blah, blah, blah," before I think about it, and then God keeps reminding me, "Okay, I know more than Google." You know, like, you know, my eyes need to be on Jesus, not on what the world is telling me to do. And that's not to say that we can't look for advice, but yet that's not where our hope is, is finding an answer. Yeah, amen. That's so encouraging. I love that. You know, many devotionals focus on comfort. You alluded to lament earlier, but your devotional doesn't shy away from lamenting. I know that this is something that David did often throughout the Psalms, so I'm curious, how is lamenting different from complaining, and why was it important to include both hope and honesty in this book of devotionals? Yeah, well, lamenting is so different from complaining in that lamenting is talking to God, and complaining is talking about God. And there is a world of difference, and we know that in relationships for those of us who are married, or not, and you just have friends, if you talk to other people about what your spouse or your friend has done, that is just going to pull you away. But you talk to them, and you go to them, and you say, "I'm hurt. I'm sad." That draws you to them, because there's an opportunity for a relationship, and I think that's exactly how it is with God. God says, "Don't complain. Don't grumble to other people." And so the Israelites are grumbling amongst themselves. God's like, "Talk to me," and that draws us closer. And that's why I think it's so important that we do that, because God doesn't want us to slap a happy face sticker on our lives when we're not happy. And I think lament is one of the most honest cries, because so often we think, "Oh, if we're happy all the time, we sing worship and pray songs, and we raise our hands in worship," and that is the most honoring thing to God. And yet we see in Scripture, God says, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." And that is what happens when our hearts are really turned from God, but we feel like we have to say the right stuff. And God is saying, "No, I want you to talk real to me. Tell me your heart. Pour it out." And that is what David models for us. That's why I think it's important in a devotional to model that, because if a devotional is just full of super encouraging little snippets of life, which are great, it's not real life, because the people reading it that are in a pit, and sometimes you need words in the pit to voice how you feel. That's so true. We want the real, you know, because that's what we're all living. Our lives are not the highlights that we see on social media. I think it's just encouraging to know that David cried out. You are crying out in this devotional and it's modeling for us how we can cry out. And that's a really beautiful picture too, because I think lament leads to relationship or a deeper relationship. I want a deeper relationship in connection with the Lord. So that's a great tool to have in the toolbox also. Just being able to pour your heart out before the Lord. Yes. Vanita, how do you hold on to God's promises when healing doesn't come or when it hasn't come the way you thought it would? How have you held on to his promises? I would say reading scripture every day. There's the scriptures I've memorized and then just holding on by believing God is speaking to me through the word every day, and just holding on to those and saying, "God, you are living even in the midst of this pain. I'm going to open up scripture and ask you to speak a fresh word to me." And that's really what I often hold on to. I remember after my husband left, clinging to the word in a different way. And one of my favorite passages was Psalm 119-25, which is, "My soul clings to the dust. Revive me according to your word." So that's what I did when things weren't changing. I was begging God to bring my husband back and put our family back. I did not see a different way. So similar to when the healing doesn't come, when God doesn't fix it, however the problem is, whether it's illness or relational or so many things, when God doesn't fix it, what do we do? And I think we keep going back to the word every day. There's the scripture we've memorized, the promises we hold on to, and then there's the everyday reading the Bible and saying, "God, I'm asking you to meet me. I'm asking you to show me your care. I'm asking you to give me a fresh word today." And I think that is one of the ways that, even in the darkness, I have felt God's presence is just opening up the word. It's so true. And I was going to say, for someone who feels weary and they're waiting right now, what encouragement would you offer them as they're watching for the morning? But it's that. It's going back to the word daily, asking God for a fresh word, even if it's something you've read for years. He shows up in different ways through the same scripture, you know? It's with new, fresh revelation for you. Oh, absolutely. I mean, just personally, I do read through the Bible plan every year, but this year I decided to do something different. I've been reading through Matthew really slowly, and I have been almost two months in two chapters of Matthew 26 and 27. So I'm reading like two verses a day. And yet I have seen things in these chapters of Last Supper, Betrayal, Crucifixion, and I have seen so many things, Stephanie, that I'm like, I've read this so many times, but there is something fresh in just a little phrase that God can bring. And like, wow, how would I never seen that before? So I would encourage people also to have a reading plan, have a place where you go to, because I think when people just open up the Bible and like, okay, I'm desperate, speak to me, I don't feel like that's the best way to do it. Like God can speak through any scripture, but I would say have your bookmark in a place that you're reading, whether it's read through the Bible in the year or read through one book in a year, which is about what I'm doing. I have just been reading Matthew, and here I am over halfway through the year and not even at the end. So whatever pace you want to read, put your bookmark there and expect that God is going to speak to you out of that passage. That's so encouraging for me because I started the Read through the Bible in a year plan with Johnny two years ago, and they have lapped me now twice. I was the teenager that used to just throw my Bible on the bed and see where it would open, and it always went open to the table of contents. But I love hearing that you go through it slowly and that it's okay to do two verses a day or a verse a day, or just camp out on a verse for a month. It's encouraging to know that there's formulas, but there's not one right way. There's just, you just want to read it. Right. Right now I'm not in a specific read this today, which I have been for a number of years. I'm looking at all the Gospels, like what did they all say about this? So there's a freedom to that too, which I've loved. So there is no right way to do this. I'm telling everybody, but just do it. Like open up the word and have some place. I think the key is a bookmark. You have one place that you're going or multiple places. Trust that God is going to speak to you where your bookmark is. Amen. So how have your children seen your faith through suffering? And with that, how has God taught you through parenting in your journey? Are there any lessons that have come alive for you as you've been parenting and walking through your hardships? In terms of how my children have seen my faith, I think they have seen it through really hard times. And it's been interesting though, because in the midst of the hardest after their dad left, I remember one of them said to me, "What's the point of serving God because it hasn't done you any good?" And that was really painful, but I understood where they were coming from. Like Christian family felt like we did it all right. I was homeschooling my kids and then life fell apart and it felt like there is no formula. There is this sort of idea, especially new Christians. If I do it right, then it's going to turn out okay, right? And then just seeing things so crumble. I think my kids faith really struggled through that because this wasn't the plan. And yet they both came back to Christ. They both had walked away just seeing that there is something to faithfulness that gives us joy even in the midst of struggle. I have a Bible study with Lifeway that my daughter, she was on the videos for. And one of the things she said was she came back to Christ because she saw that I had joy and she had no idea why. She's like, "I don't know why she has joy. Her life is so bad." And it was bad. And she said, "So there's got to be a God." So I would say when the parent is suffering, sometimes the child is like, "What's the point of following God?" But yet I think over time, faithfulness, they see that it's real. So my kids have seen it through suffering and I don't always respond well. So I don't want to act like I'm this perfect model and yet God is faithful even in the midst of that. And God has taught me that parenting is a long game. There were times when I felt so desperate. Everything was falling apart, including my kids, and felt like that was the one thing I really needed God to be faithful in. Like, "Okay, you can take everything, but not my kids." And I felt like the Lord was like, "Can you trust me?" I think trusting God with your children is the biggest act of trust. Because you really don't know where God is going to lead them and take them. And yet that is another thing that deepens our faith as we recognize. We can't control it anyway, so why don't we give it to God? Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a huge piece. When you are walking through really huge trials and you're doing that in front of your kids, they're witnessing it. Those are seeds that are planted in their hearts. Seeing how you stay faithful and stay the course, kids, they come back to it. They come back to it, they're like, "I saw my parents do this, so let me try it." And they end up finding God for themselves a lot of times. So I'm thankful for faithful models in my life and just your faithfulness and the faithfulness of so many believers that have continued to stay the course. Yeah, there's a lot of friends I have that their kids are struggling and yet just seeing their faithfulness even in the midst of that is an inspiration to me. Yeah, it's so inspirational. What do you wish more churches understood about walking with people who may be living with chronic suffering or invisible disabilities? I wish that churches would lean in to lament more so that it's not just praise music and the standard answer for how are you doing this better than I deserve. And I understand the thinking behind that is that we do want to focus on God and God has given us so much more than we do deserve. But when we use that as the standard answer sometimes, it makes us hide. Nobody's actually saying what's hard. And then if you don't say what's hard, then I don't feel the freedom to say what's hard. And so we're all just saying, "We're great, so good." And I think we really miss fellowship and we miss being real and we miss encouraging one another to press on and praying with one another. There's so many things we miss and I think it starts with each one of us being willing to say what's hard in our lives. Not like I'm focusing on my problems like the dishwasher broke the dog threw up. Let me just tell you all of those things. But this is hard and can you encourage me in the Lord? We're saying this is hard, but this is one way the Lord encouraged me. Giving a balanced view of our lives I think would be really helpful for people in the church so that people with struggles can feel free to share them. Often people with chronic illness, pain, invisible disabilities, their lives look perfect to other people. They don't know what's happening below the surface. I think another thing would be to ask and be willing to be vulnerable and say what's going on in your life and ask them. If you know somebody's struggled with Lyme disease and they may be look fine, maybe like, "How is today? How has this week been?" And how can I help you offering help rather than waiting to be asked is huge. Yeah, I'm just thinking of this one sweet person that messages us a lot on YouTube. And they are going through so, so much. They feel like they're not being really heard at their church. You know, they're like, "I asked them. They've prayed for me. This has been years of a struggle. What do I do?" That's just how they end their comments. And I'm just like, "God, show up for them in the ways that they need." That's something we've got to pray for, for the Lord to show us exactly how we can be used to encourage those in our churches that are really in need of an answer. Right. I think it's hard because people show up in a crisis. There's a hundred casseroles when there's a death, but then three months later, there's not a call or a note in the mailbox. We are there for crises, and then we go back to our lives, and yet what is God calling us to? We all know lots of people with struggles, and so some of it is being discerning. What is God calling us to do? And then how do we minister to people? Even in the morning, asking God specifically, "Lord, is there somebody you want me to just reach out to today?" And just putting it on our minds that there are other people that maybe we've sort of moved on, but their struggles haven't. And maybe it's just taking a few minutes every day to just say, "God, open my eyes. Is there someone that I need to reach out to?" And I think it requires intentionality on our part. And then for people in the church, just praying that they would lean on the Lord in it, because it's so easy to get bitter and want to leave the church and feel like, "I've poured into it, nobody's here for me." And I get that feeling, but I do get a lot of people feeling like that, and I don't know what the answer is for them. Besides, trust God to bring the right people. And then for all of us to be sensitive to the Spirit and ask the Lord. Yeah, that's one thing that I've loved about our podcast is the things that our guests share. I take to heart this is something that I want to start doing is asking the Lord daily, "Who can I bless? Who can I serve today? How can I be used? Here am I, send me to the person that really is in need that I could influence and bless?" You've shared a lot. This has been a very encouraging podcast, I think. Is there anything else that you would want to share with somebody today that might be feeling weary in the waiting? I would say, "Hang on, God is with you in this waiting." And even though it may be completely dark right now, it may look like it's pitch black and it's pouring rain. Light is coming and it will obliterate the darkness. So, trust God with that. Light is coming. Amen. That is a very rich word and so encouraging and I just pray that somebody takes that to heart today. So good. It's so, so good. Thank you so much, Vanita. You are just a whole treasure trove of wisdom and encouragement. And if somebody's wondering, can you tell us where people can find your devotional and how can they connect more with your work? Yeah, you can find the devotional pretty much anywhere books are sold. So, like, be an age of a LifeWay website, Amazon. You can connect with me at my website, which is Vanita.com. I write a blog mostly about suffering, so you can subscribe there if you want to get my emails. And then you can see my other books and, yeah, it's a good way to connect with me. I love it. Well, I will be subscribing today and I'm just so thankful for you taking the time to come on and speak with me and just share out of your experience and what the Lord has been showing you. This has been so rich today and I pray that it's the same for those that are listening and what a blessing you are. Thanks for coming back to the podcast. Thank you for having me. It is always an incredible joy to be here, so thank you. We hope this conversation touched your heart today. If it did, consider sharing it with someone who might be encouraged as well. And don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcasting app so you never miss an episode. See you next week. you