Job 2
Last week, I introduced you to the story of Kelly Lemon. She was an ordinary 12 year old girl looking forward to a normal life. But then her family was involved in a serious car accident where Kelly lost the use of her right arm and other muscles. She began the journey of multiple doctor’s visits, surgeries and therapies that aimed to help her recover.
In May 2008, Kelly had major spinal cord surgery to reduce her nerve pain with the hope of bringing some feeling back to her right arm. But the surgery failed and her nerve pain increased dramatically. Kelly shares about her response to God in those days. “I asked, ‘God, what was the point of that? How did that strengthen my testimony? I could have dealt with the surgery failing and no improvement, but why did you allow the surgery to intensify the pain to the degree that it did? I had nerve pain before and that impacted my testimony; now I still have the same story, except that I am living with more pain.”
There was another time when Kelly felt tingling in her left hand. Then fingers began to grow numb. Then the numbness extended up her arm. Then one evening after teaching snowboarding, she could not feel her left arm. She told herself that it was frozen from the cold and everything would be okay when her arm warmed up. So she got home and went into the shower. But as she tried to lift her left arm she realized she could do nothing with it. It just flopped to her side. She slid down the shower wall and sat on the floor crying out – “God, you have already taken one arm and countless muscles in my body, please … please don’t take my left arm! Don’t … don’t take it. You say you only give us what we can handle, and I can’t handle having no arms! You’ve finally reached the limit of what I can take. I want to do things for your kingdom; please let me keep one hand!” Kelly’s bad circumstances had worsened. How would she respond to God now?
