Stories That Sustain Us
In June 2019, my oldest daughter was diagnosed with acute B-cell leukemia, an extremely aggressive form of that cancer. God was faithful throughout her treatment. It was intense and nearly fatal, but she’s still here.
In that crisis, I knew that we needed strength and encouragement from Scripture, but I struggled to bring specific verses to mind. There was too much to think about. And I realized that for children, verses plucked from passages they haven’t studied yet may not be as helpful as stories.
Between the moment we brought our daughter home from the hospital as a newborn and the nine years later when something was desperately wrong with her body, we had immersed ourselves in Bible story books. We wore through the covers and patched them with duct tape (before finally surrendering defeat and ordering new copies). We got them sticky with syrup and peanut butter over breakfast. We read before naps, before bed.
But stories aren’t just for children. We are all designed to learn through stories, and in the hospital, those Bible stories we’d read over and over sustained us. They reminded us that God takes care of his people in times of crisis.
Abraham brought crisis on his head when he lied about Sarah being his sister, but God delivered him. Another bad choice left Hagar and Ishmael in crisis in the wilderness, but God intervened.
Ruth was staring down widowhood with no social safety net during a famine. God’s provision did not just feed her hand to mouth for the rest of her days; he gave her a home and a place in the lineage of the Savior of the world.
Daniel being thrown into a den of lions looks like a crisis, unless you know that God is at work. Jonah faced certain death in a stormy sea (granted, his crisis was self-inflicted) and uncertainty in the belly of the fish until he repented. A widow was about to make a final meal for her son and herself when Elijah showed up.
These and more fill the Old Testament before we meet the big hero, Jesus, who spoke sight and bread and life where it wasn’t before, rescuing any number of people from their physical trials—and then he did the impossible to save our very souls.
For our daughter, this was sufficient: a cloud of witnesses stuck in hard things (some self-imposed, some simply because this world is fallen) who were saved by a strong, capable, loving God.
When we look back at pictures from that season, she and I remember different things. Where I remember blood and fear, she remembers assurance mingled with the haze of sedation; where I remember isolation and uncertainty, she remembers snuggles and endless rounds of Exploding Kittens.
I’m thankful her memories are positive: there is only so much a nine-year-old can comprehend about nearly dying. It is enough that she knows God brought her through the fire, like he did so many others.
But as treatment wore on, so did regular life for the rest of the world. Summer ended, our wonderfully attentive church family went back to school, and we had to keep them at arm’s length as chemo ravaged our daughter’s immune system.
Bible stories bolstered us in the trial, but in the loneliness, I needed a very specific story, one that showed not just deliverance from trial but God’s character toward his people. I turned to Isaiah.
My crisis and that of Israel in Isaiah’s day are very different: Israel was receiving divine judgment, exile, for repeated sin and turning from God—the consequence of their own actions. My daughter’s leukemia was a devastating consequence of the broken world we live in where things simply aren’t as they should be.
However, the character of God is steady, which allows us to take comfort in the way he loves imperfect people even when the story isn’t about us. When God calls Israel “stubborn” in one verse but promises that his “salvation will not delay” in the next, we can trust that he is for his people (Isa. 46:12-13).
Over and over, God shows through Isaiah how his heart is inclined toward his people, by speaking comfort over them,[1] by calling them out of fear,[2] by promising to bear them to their final days.[3] He speaks to the future of the restoration: “For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you” (Isa. 54:7).
He tears down to build up. He leads them out to lead them back in, but the right way. He sends his Son to die to bring life.
Just as Abraham, Ruth, David, and the Israelites of Isaiah’s day did not have foresight, I did not know what outcome God had for my daughter. But I had the messy examples of people who trusted God or who were part of his plan in spite of themselves, and for that season, it was enough.
He gives us stories of his faithfulness to strengthen our faith and sustain us in the storms.
[1] Isaiah 40:1
[2] Isaiah 41:10
[3] Isaiah 46:4
[4] Isaiah 48:10
