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 14
Mark 4:38-41 (New International Version)
38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Jesus has just finished a busy day ministering among the people of Israel. He fell asleep in the boat as his disciples sailed across the Sea of Galilee. A storm came upon the boat which frightened even those among his disciples who fisherman by trade. They have sailed these waters in all kinds of weather. They were frightened and so they woke Jesus and asked him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
Jesus calmed the water and the wind died down by as command. The disciples asked themselves “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Jesus asked them “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? ” We must look at our lives and answer that question Jesus asked his disciples. Every thing in our life has change and we are in mist of a great storm. Do we have faith or no faith in God? If we have faith in God, then why are we afraid?
Storms are a part of every life. In our own strength, it is hard to ride the storms out. God gives us the strength to overcome our storms. No one is prepared for a life with a brain injury. When the call comes that a love one is being taken to the hospital, no one thinks about a brain injury. Even at the hospital, as the terms head injury and brain injury are being used by the doctors and medical staff, the full understanding what those words mean for our life escapes us. We have read novels and seen movies and TV shows where it all works out, and the patients are perfectly 100% better when they wake up from a coma caused by brain trauma. We all know that is not the reality. Even a mild brain injury can cause long term problems. We are not ready financially, mentally, or emotionally to handle life with a brain injury. Like the disciples we want to cry out to Jesus, “don’t you care if we drown?”
Jesus dose care about us. The storm of brain injury we face can be raging all around us, yet we can have a calm heart/mind. It is Jesus’ Presence in our life which helps us though our storm. The disciples had not come to a full understand who Jesus was. We need to understand Jesus and our relationship with him. The disciples call him teacher; they did not yet see him as the Christ, the son of God who was capable of all things. How do you see Jesus?
Pray and thank God for the help and peace He gives us as we go though the storms in our lives.
Pray and thank God for His love to us and being with us as we face our storms.
Pray and ask God to help us with all the problems that arise because of the storm in which we find ourselves.