Early in life at youth camp, I sang with fervor, “Shut in with God in a secret place, there in His presence beholding His face. Gaining new power to run in this race—oh, how I long to be shut in with God.”

Then, as an adult, I discovered what it was like to be shut in with God in the “secret place” of both physical and emotional pain. That place did not seem at all what the song inferred. Yet, in the end, it proved to be the very place where empowerment was gained for running the race that my eventual “call” involved. Truth be known, we cannot see, in advance, what we are being prepared to accomplish within our lives.

At age 18, I threw the first blood clot into my heart and lungs. The doctor told me, “For you, life will be like living on a stick of dynamite. You will never know when it will blow.” This began my adult life which played out just as predicted.

Many blood clots traveling . . . many hospital stays . . . until the day a new, life-saving surgery became possible at age 35. A Teflon screen was sown into my vena cava below my heart. Afterwards, two years of living mostly in bed, while on oxygen from damaged lungs found me gaining hope that I would live.

In between those earlier bouts of pulmonary emboli, children came one-by-one, three sons, but I couldn’t be sure of living long enough to raise them. With ongoing emboli episodes, it was clear my existence was tenuous. Being in and out of the hospital I felt my life was never going to get started. Obviously smart, I received nearly 100 on the US Gov.’s Civil Service Test. I longed to use my brain . . . do something worthwhile with my life. A prevalent sense persisted; there was “something” I was supposed to do.

During those early years, I savored and enjoyed my three little boys, Ted, Tim and Todd. Yet, I feared my being sick and divorced would somehow warp their sense that life was good. Looking back, as it happened each of them became “more” not “less” because of those years in which they, too, lived with uncertainty.

But, then at age 26, I met Gary Smith. On Dec. 25, 1966, we married and the boys soon claimed him as “Dad.” This man did amazing things to bring his new family through hardships that continued, right and left.

Other great things happened, like friends. I recall, years later, spending a weekend with Hilda and Nandor in Green Valley. Hilda, at 73, sensed some of my anguish. I, in turn, surmised she was someone who could hear what needed to be said. Finding an hour apart from the men, we talked. This wise woman of years was undisturbed by my tears. The essence of my lament was: “I’m tired of a body that fails so frequently. There is something I am supposed to be doing! But, it feels like I am caught in inertia!”

Hilda listened. Her words, well placed and few, went right to the heart. “What’s your hurry? What are you running from?”

“Fear,” I said. “Fear that my life will slip away, unfulfilled. And, perhaps I’m running from the pain of the past, old grief that seems not to heal.”

Hilda, tall and stalwart, her very presence gave me hope toward waiting for God’s timing. In moments of high inspiration I have been known to pray, “Make me what I ought to be, make me more like Thee … Burn off all dross that encrusts this soul.” Then, comes the fire of more “waiting,” more hospital trips . . . in no time at all, I inwardly scream for release.

It was once said, “There is no music in the rest, but there is the making of music in the rest.”

The words of “great waiters,” historically, can give comfort to us all. In the book of Job, one man’s experience of God is illuminated, “Oh, that I knew where to find Him . . . that I might ask Him why . . . how long . . . would he abuse me? But He knows the way that I take and when He has tried me, when He has tested me, I will come out as pure as gold.” (This is a paraphrased passage of Job 23:9-10.)

The treasured passage in 1 Corinthians 10:13 promises that God will make sure we are not tested beyond our strength. Whatever we are going through, it is for sure God will give us a way out of it. Meanwhile, we are strengthened through enduring.

How could I know my years of struggling was the best preparation for the work I would do after raising my family. As a clinical chaplain, I feel totally “in the right place” helping people in the fox holes of life, handling pain, uncertainty, some waiting for it all to end. I can be “with them” as they wait. I can feel what they are going through. Having been through “the University of Mammoth Problems” I can help them find meaning and purpose.

And, for sure, God is not finished with the process of refining this soul of mine. Life is a course of development—one that at times is quite far from easy.

Someone once said, “When it is easy, it will be over.”