A She Chose Hope Story by Lauri A. Hogle, PhD
Chapter 1 – A dream story
I had fancied up a dream story! At 25, our Lord had gifted me with ten years of walking as a new creation in Christ, cherishing a loving husband and three little daughters. I delightfully served God as a church music director, music therapist, and music teacher. I loved my dream life story! And I loved God’s Word and loved Jesus. The first chapter of my Christian story made me happy!
Chapter 2’s conflict – Chronic, undiagnosed illness
The plot began changing. Every good story has a conflict, right? I started dropping things, progressively weakened and numb, in widespread pain. Doctors had no answers, tests read normal, and I was labeled “hypochondriac.” Symptoms expanded, with never-ending headaches, trouble standing up, fuzzy thinking, and passing out.
The setting of my story became constant chaos of ambulances, hospitals, unhelpful medications, and valiant rescue attempts as internal organ systems dysfunctioned.
My story wasn’t supposed to be this way.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Is. 49:15 ESV).
As the Holy Spirit illuminated Scripture to me, He comforted me with mercy and compassion, reminding me that Jesus himself knows my pain intimately. As in Psalms of lament, He turned my heart to praise, into my continual fears and tears.
“The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults and with my song will I give thanks to him” (Ps. 28:7 ESV).
Bedridden, my family had been fed by church meal trains for years. I’d relinquished my dream story of a clean house, little girls in crisp dresses with braided hair, and energetically supporting my husband. I couldn’t share music with others.
I grieved the loss of identity, control, or ability to plan anything. Loneliness, shame, anxiety, and depression followed my body’s undiagnosed breakdown. I begged God for help and answers, clinging to my eternal hope in Christ. How could my slowly dying body be my story as a young wife and mother? Where could I find hope when doctors could give us no hope?
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Chapter 3 – Resolution!
“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times not yet done, saying ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Is. 46:10 ESV).
My husband took a new job in Baltimore, and I became a patient at Johns Hopkins. “Call for the elders of the church…let them pray” (Jas. 5:14 ESV). Nearly eight years after symptoms began, they gathered around my wheelchair and called upon God’s mercy. The plot’s conflict thickened a few days later; I contracted tonsilitis and a high fever, hospitalized for five days.
By then, the home internet had been invented! Checking email upon returning home, a woman’s subject of “tonsils” caught my eye. Was this a clue? She shared her daughter’s healing story of brain surgery for brainstem herniation of the “cerebellar tonsils.” Her daughter’s symptoms mirrored mine! Where was this surgery?
Johns Hopkins!
My internist rushed my brain scans to that surgeon. By God’s grace, my illness chapter ended with brain surgery days later. The following year resounded His praise as His story in my life “went viral” through TV shows, newspapers, and magazines. Many also were healed as a result. Soli Deo Gloria!
Loving my husband and children, loving many through a music career and writing, loving my suffering sisters in Christ through a new ministry, I thought my story was one of a healed body, a resolution! I thought my story was holding the hands of my sisters in Christ from His victorious finish line of a healed body.
Chapter 4 – A new chapter of illness
No, it’s not.
God is writing a new chapter now, 23 years since His healing. My brainstem herniated further, and disabling illness has become part of my story in the last year. I’m walking through testing and treatments again, with much loss and horrific pain. This new chapter is not finished.
But this time? It’s so different! Hallelujah!
God’s grand kingdom story…of love and hope
Over the years, our precious Savior has taught me that we are not the main character of our stories.
Jesus is.
By His perfect life, atoning death, and victorious resurrection, we have all hope in this life and eternal life!
“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57 ESV).
Our earthly stories and chapters are embedded in God’s grand and glorious larger story of hope in Jesus Christ. For each of us, He’s providentially weaving His entire story, giving us continual hope, whether in this earthly life or death. We’re walking together as supporting characters in God’s story throughout all generations of His people, His-story of hope. It’s a kingdom love story of His perfect creation, sin’s destruction that causes suffering in this fallen world, and His beautifully redeeming His children in Christ, His bride!
Each chapter…each word, sentence, page…is in the hands of our always-loving and always-good God.
We know the glorious end of the story, don’t we? Our conquering Savior says, “The one who conquers will be clothed in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels” (Rev. 3:5 ESV). And Who is interceding for us as we suffer? Who is “for us” as we suffer? All of Romans 8 has become His daily gift to me.
“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37 ESV).
The consummation of God’s love story is sure, giving all of our earthly stories a beautiful purpose. Somehow, it’s all His loving purpose for our lives until we see Jesus face-to-face. This gives us hope.
Praising my Savior, all the day long
“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5 ESV).
By God’s transforming work of grace, I’m just now beginning to experience this Scripture’s truths of hope mingled with love and joy because I know He will continue to sustain and change me through anything He brings me on earth.
In my new chapter of suffering, hope brings me to my loving Savior in desperate need again, resting in His presence when I can’t “do” anything, sharing when He enables me, and singing of my hope in Christ to endure. I can trust my Father’s love story because in His “book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Ps. 139:16 ESV).
Beloved in Christ, the story IS supposed to be this way. Our stories in this fallen world are in the loving hands of our Jesus, now and forever. Will you sing to Him along with me today?
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long;
this is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, all is at rest;
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
watching and waiting, looking above,
filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
(“Blessed Assurance,” Fanny Crosby, public domain)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lauri A Hogle, PhD is the founder of the nonprofit women’s ministry, Singing Christ’s Hope. She has served as a church music/children’s/women’s ministry leader, music educator, music therapist, research scholar, and author. Her words and musical offerings have touched lives throughout the globe. Lauri’s lifelong passion is to glorify God through music, teaching, research, and writing. By God’s grace in healing, her greatest joy is as wife, mother, and Nana. You can connect with Lauri at her website, www.laurihogle.com
