Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. II Corinthians 4:16
For the past three weeks, I’ve spent many hours at my mother’s bedside in the hospital and now in rehab at a nursing home. She fell and fractured her pelvis and hip on February 12.
I had told a friend at work that I was looking forward to the three-day weekend and spending time in my yard and art studio. On my way home, I received a call from the assisted living facility that mom had fallen in her apartment and was in transport to ER. So, instead of continuing home, I headed for the hospital. Thus began the daily vigil of caring, supporting, listening, advocating, waiting, pacing, coaching, and generally struggling to understand the mysterious ways of the medical world.
My mom has suffered with chronic pain and limited mobility for years, and now this. Really, God? I have watched her outwardly wasting away and wondered how she is being renewed day by day. How am I?
 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. II Corinthians 4:10
Perhaps the renewal is inextricably linked to suffering. Perhaps it’s the blossom and fruit of our troubles. Life from death. I don’t like that model.
Sometimes…well, most of the time…it’s hard to understand what God is up to when we or someone we love is suffering. I see but a miniscule slice of time, albeit the only slice of time I live in and experience, and from that perspective, none of this makes sense. But God has the beginning and end in view simultaneously and weaves it all together perfectly. I can see His perfect timing looking back, but I can’t see it looking forward. With Him, there is no back or forward. He envelops time – beginning to end.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. II Corinthians 4:18
I think the key is where I set my focus day in and day out through the years and the struggles. If I develop an enduring habit of fixing my gaze and thoughts on Him, more of His life will be formed in me. As the outside fades away, the truth of the inside is revealed. We’re turned inside out.
The most profound picture of Jesus today is in those who have walked the long path of life’s troubles but have kept their eyes on their unseen Companion who has carried them and sustained them.
Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4