Finding Peace in Life’s Storms: A Journey of Faith through Tragedy and Triumph

Dr. Tonya Boyer: I don't want to do this.
I can't do it.
Maybe you've had that feeling as well in your life.
I've said those words to God many times the past four and a half years.
Maybe you have felt you don't want to do something.
You may have even felt like, "I cannot do this."
Now I'm not talking like you don't want to take one of Dr. Laughlin's A&P tests.
Nobody wants to do that.
Or you don't want to give a speech in Mrs. G's class.
Maybe you're really hoping Coach Gomez doesn't make you do the four-on-four, full court,
no dribble drill today.
And there's probably some of you out there that don't want to get 45 chapel credits each
semester.
So thanks for being here.
Those are things you may not want to do, but today I'm talking about storms that come into
our lives that we just don't want to do.
Challenges and trial and suffering.
Sometimes these storms may just be a rain shower.
The sky's dark, rain comes, but it moves on and life returns to normal.
It may be a severe thunderstorm that comes in the night.
The power goes out, you hear the thunder and the lightning.
Maybe there's damage, maybe there's debris, but eventually the power comes back on.
Debris is cleaned up, the damage is repaired, and life returns to normal.
Other times, however, it may be a tornado or a hurricane that comes and leaves a path
of complete destruction.
The damage is severe and overwhelming.
Devastation is widespread.
The loss is profound.
Can you click the next slide?
Here we go.
On June 10th, 2020, a devastating hurricane hit our family.
Brooklyn was swimming with friends and hit her head on the bottom of the swimming pool.
She crushed her C5 vertebrae and was immediately paralyzed from the chest down.
She became a quadriplegic in the blink of an eye.
It was a life-altering injury.
Life would not return to normal.
I remember the words of the neurosurgeon that night after he operated on Brooklyn.
He said, "This is a devastating injury, and she won't be going home for a long time."
The complications of a spinal cord injury are many.
Brooklyn has spent over 169 days in the hospital since this accident.
Next slide, please.
Yeah.
Go back to that other one, please.
90 of those days were spent at Craig Rehabilitation Hospital in Englewood, Colorado.
We were 545 miles away from family and friends in the middle of the pandemic.
It was grueling work.
She was in therapy eight hours a day, five days a week.
It was heartbreaking for me and David, her dad, Tyler, her brother, to watch her try
to regain the use of her arms and her legs.
It was excruciating watching her learn to live life in a wheelchair.
Peace has been hard, if not impossible, at times to find.
And I told God over and over, "I don't want to do this.
I cannot do this."
But suffering is inevitable.
We're actually told in John 16, 33, Jesus says, "I've told you all this so that
you will have peace in me.
Here on earth you will have trials and sorrows, but take heart, I have overcome the world."
Before Brooklyn's accident, I would have told you that I completely trusted God.
I had no doubt He would be with me whatever came in this life.
I would have told you I trusted Him explicitly.
But then the accident happened, and I began to question God's presence in our storm.
Where are you, God?
How can you watch our suffering and not heal her?
How can you say you love us and watch us in agony?
Maybe you felt that way at some point in your life.
I know some of you have been in a storm.
Maybe you're in one right now.
We all will be at some point in the future.
The storms in our lives can look like a lot of different things.
Broken relationships, trauma, and accidents happen.
People get sick.
Jobs are lost.
People receive terminal diagnoses.
There's abuse.
And people that we love die.
These things could bring fear to our hearts and be completely overwhelming, if not for
God.
See, Jesus told us there would be trials and suffering, but He immediately follows that
with great reassurance.
He says, "Take heart.
I have overcome the world."
See, we're not promised a trouble-free life.
I wish we were.
But what Jesus promises us is that His presence and His peace will be with us in these storms.
When we put our trust in Him, we will find the peace that is found only in Him.
When Jesus said that He had overcome the world, He was telling us He's already defeated anything
here in this world.
He took our sin and died on the cross and defeated death, and in doing so, defeated
Satan.
Satan will try to steal our joy, our peace.
He will try to steal anything he can get, but he can't do it.
God has already won this.
Satan's been defeated, and he has conquered the world.
It's not up to me.
Thank goodness I don't have to conquer the world and create peace in my life.
I just need to trust the One who's already done that.
And today I want you to know that peace is possible when storms come into our lives.
There's nothing here we face on earth that God cannot handle.
There's three things I want to share with you that have helped me find peace in our
storm.
The first is look for God.
Our family calls these God things.
Some people call them God winks.
Others call them divine appointments.
But they're all ways that God shows up to remind us that He's with us and we're not
alone.
Our family has looked for Him every single day since Brooklyn's accident.
We needed the reminder He was with us.
I want to share a few of those with you.
The day of Brooklyn's accident, her boyfriend, Alan, was there, and he had just finished
lifeguard training the week before.
The training was fresh on his mind.
He knew exactly what to do, and he saved her from drowning.
The paramedics would later tell David and I that they could not believe how calm her
friends were and that they had done everything exactly like they would have done if they
had been there.
Was that just a coincidence or lucky thing that Alan had had the lifeguard training so
recently or that these teenagers were so calm in a very traumatic situation?
Not a chance.
It was a God thing.
The ambulance was already in the neighborhood at the time of the accident.
They had received a call and gone, but the call was canceled.
So when they got Brooklyn's, they were blocks away.
They got to her faster.
She got to the hospital faster.
Was that just luck?
It was a God thing.
As we prepared to come home after spending 90 days in Denver at the rehabilitation hospital,
we knew we would need a van to bring her home in, an accessible van to accommodate her wheelchair.
David began looking.
These vans were all over the United States, but that would require us to—someone to
fly there, drive it back.
It would be a lot.
He had not looked very long when he found one less than 15 miles from the hospital.
He went and looked at it.
It was exactly what we needed.
It was exactly in our price range, and it was almost practically new.
A family had bought it for their mother and hadn't used it very long before she passed
away.
A few days later, David was looking at the GoFundMe that had been set up to help us with
expenses.
A sizable donation had been made by someone that none of us recognized.
So he did what we all do when we want to find information.
He Googled her.
And the first thing that popped up was an obituary.
And as he read that, he realized it was the obituary for the mom that had used the van,
and one of her daughters had made a significant contribution to the GoFundMe to help us.
Was it just luck that we found that van, or that a generous soul wanted to help us?
It was a God thing.
As we returned home, I took Brooklyn to get her nails done.
It was the first time she'd had her nails done since the accident.
A girl has still got to have her nails.
And I was talking to the nail tech just to tell her a few things to be aware of, you
know, because of the paralysis.
And she listened, and then she looked at me and she smiled and she said, "I helped take
care of my uncle who's a quadriplegic."
Brooklyn and I looked at each other.
I thought of all the nail salons in Lubbock.
There's a lot.
And all the nail techs that we could have gotten that day.
We happened to get one that already knew about paralysis.
Not a chance.
All of those things tell our family that God is with us, and some are bigger than others.
But I don't care.
If the nail tech at the salon already knows this, I'm going to take it that God's saying,
"I'm with you."
So look for God.
The next thing that has helped me is to live one day at a time.
Our challenges often feel overwhelming, and there's just still days that I tell God, "I
don't want to do this, and I can't do it."
But David, Brooklyn's sweet daddy, reminds our family often, "We can do this one day
at a time."
If we try to look too far ahead, it is overwhelming.
If I try to look six months or a year from now, that's a lot to take in.
But he'll say, "Can we do it today?"
We can.
Sometimes we've had to say, "Can we do it for the next few hours?"
We can.
And there have been some crushing moments that it has been, "Can we do this for the
next few minutes?"
But the answer is yes to all of those, because the Lord is with us.
And when we look back at his faithfulness from all those God things, we see that he
was faithful then, he's going to be faithful now, and he will be faithful in the future.
He continues to make a way.
We put one foot in front of the other one day at a time.
The third thing that has helped me is to lean into my faith.
It's a daily choice that I have to make to choose to believe that God is still good regardless
of our circumstances.
It is a daily choice that I have to make to trust him, but I know he's already conquered
the world and he is faithful.
And it's a daily choice that I make to choose Jesus, despite our circumstances.
No one else loves me like that.
No one else loves you as much as he does and will provide exactly what you need.
If I did not believe these things, life would truly be hopeless.
But I make the choice to lean into my faith, and some days, admittedly, it's harder than
others.
The faith that I lean into doesn't make it easy.
This is the hardest thing that I have ever had to do.
So no, just saying I have faith doesn't make it easy.
It makes it possible.
And that's what God does.
I'm learning that I can have peace despite our circumstances, no matter what is going
on, because God has promised that his presence and his peace will be with us.
And we have seen him in the storms in our life provide the peace that I so desperately
need.
My circumstances may not change.
Some things that we've prayed about have changed and others have not.
But regardless, he is faithful and he is with us.
These are just a few of the pictures of many that I could show you to show God's faithfulness
and to show how he has made a way for us.
From Brooklyn lying in a hospital bed unable to move to starting college here, she's learned
to drive and has a vehicle.
Her boyfriend, Alan, he's still there and he loves her unconditionally.
And our family, though we are changed by this, we have found peace in our storm because of
God.
These pictures are evidence of God's presence, regardless of our circumstances.
Who else could stand beside me in the fire?
Who else could part the waters at my feet?
Who else could move the mountains that I am facing?
Who else holds my victory?
I trust Jesus.
In the storm and in the fight, all my days and all my life, I trust Jesus.
And it is my prayer for you today that you will know the peace that can be found from
a relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has already won the battle for us.
We just have to trust Him with that.
I want to end today by sharing a song with you that has brought me peace and encouragement.
Matthew West sings it and it's called "I Trust Jesus."