Why shouldn’t I go through trials?”
It’s not the normal question asked. Most often people ask God, “Why me? Why do I have to go through this trial?”
When Charlotte Madison — a retired Spanish and English teacher and member of Mount Zion Baptist Church, Huntsville, where her husband, Ron, serves as pastor — was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2013 she struggled.
Madison opened up about her struggle at the 2015 Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference’s Ministers’ Wives Luncheon hosted by Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union. She shared how God used her experience to teach her how to reframe her perspective in a more eternal light.
Soon after she was diagnosed, Madison realized her best course of treatment was to have her bladder removed and use an external bag for urination, a urostomy bag.
“I was so depressed, so dejected” at this point, Madison told the more than 50 women. “It was no coincidence, of course, that I was teaching Sunday School from (the book of) James around that time.”
Facing trials
James 1:2 grabbed her attention. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Madison knew God was taking her through this passage for a reason.
It was then that she asked herself, “Why shouldn’t I go through trials?”
During this time Madison knew she needed a different perspective and that her circumstances needed reframing.
“My spirit was really rebelling against all of this but … God’s Spirit was working in me.”
One night His Spirit spoke five reassurances to her: pray without ceasing, laugh every day, be thankful “because you have so much to be thankful for,” reject fear because it’s from Satan and “I’ve got this; everything is in My hands.”
From that moment forward Madison used Ephesians 3:20–21 to reframe her perspective of her cancer. She would lean on “Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” and glorify Him in all things.
Several months later Madison revisited James 1:2 with her renewed perspective.
‘I release it all for You’
“It was really [then] that I think I was able to say, ‘OK, God. I live or I die … You have a plan and I release it all for You.’”
Madison was even able to re-frame her urostomy bag. To the laughter of the women gathered, Madison shared that she named the bag a Spanish word that means “ugly little thing” and she’ll talk to it when she’s frustrated or needs some light humor.
It’s time for reframing, Madison said, “when only one thing will please you and it’s not what’s going on in your life right now, when you find yourself filled with anxiety and fear, when you’re filled with bitterness and when you can’t get out of bed every day.”
So when trials come — because they’re going to come — seek perspective, faith, joy and an eternal viewpoint, Madison said.
“Know that if God is God then He’s not taken by surprise for this. … [You] can trust that He is working in this situation.”
Madison’s honesty and vulnerability were encouraging for all the participants, said Sherry Crew, wife of Roger Crew, minister of education at First Baptist Church, Trussville.
“I think it’s kind of a unique place that women feel like they’re in (as ministers’ wives),” she said. “People’s expectations are sometimes unrealistic so it’s good for people to know how normal our lives are and to have the support of other ministers’ wives.”
Share with others: