Each day during the month of March we will be sharing a devotional from a booklet written by Steve Love. Steve is a member of Canton First and a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor. If you would like a complete PDF of this devotional, it can be downloaded here.
Day 10
Nehemiah 4:6 (New International Version)
So, we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.
Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the king Artaxerxes I, the son of Xerxes who formed the Persian Empire. One day one of his brothers who lived in Israel visited Nehemiah. Nehemiah wanted to know the news of their homeland and quickly asked his brother about his home and the lives of those who lived there. His heart/mind was greatly upset when he heard and had finally understood the plight of Israel.
The king helped Nehemiah to go back to Israel and gave him the orders he need to help rebuild the city of Jerusalem. He was able to help the people see that they could rebuild the walls and their lives. Each one had the task of building the portion of the wall near where they lived. Nehemiah notes, “we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.”
Our lives, our family life, at the time we had our brain injury seem very much like the walls of Jerusalem. Broken and scattered we were just waiting for someone to come and rebuild our lives. God use Nehemiah to help the people to what they could do to help bring about rebuilding the walls. God use the people who entered our live from the EMS team, doctors, nurses, Therapists, minister, social worker, and neurophysiologist to help rebuild our lives.
The wall was rebuilt when the people had the heart/mind to see it rebuilt. The ones with a brain injury and their family need to come to term with what has happened to them. We all go through the grief process. First, we live in the state of denial. Anger follows and we want to know why me? Slowly we start to accept it and start rebuilding our lives. Sadly, too many near moves beyond the denial stag. It is only when we have the heart/mind to rebuild a life that we will be able to build one.
The lives we build are the one, we chose for ourselves. If it will have meaning and make a different to our homes and committees it is by our choice and no one else. We are in control of what we make of our lives. We do not have to allow our circumstances to dictate to us what kind of life we will live. We chose, we are the ones who decide to have a predated one or non-predated life. Yes, our lives are not what we hope them to be. It is up to you to choose if you live life or just exist.
The people who work with Nehemiah, who had a heart/mind to work made a big different in their home comity. We can make a different in ours. It is in our home city and county, we can and will have the greatest impact. Canton Illinois and Fulton County is becoming more aware about brain injuries. I spend a large amount of my time trying to raise the awareness of brain injury and how to avoid becoming a person with a brain injury. My life is one of meaning and is making a different in Canton and Fulton County. What about your life?
Pray and thank God for everyone who had played apart helping us to rebuild our lives.
Pray and thank God that we might have to live a life with a brain injury, but the brain injury doses do not dictate how we chose to live it.
Pray and ask God to help us to live a life that will have meaning for us, our family, and our committees.