Bonnie and I spoke at a couple of women’s events in middle TN and upstate NY and our topic was Abundance. Specifically, how to live an abundant life with Jesus and why so many of us don’t feel like we are “having life to the full” as Jesus promised. One session in particular was about how we can live an abundant life with Jesus even during suffering. And the Links know a thing or two about suffering.
Welcome!
Joey and Carla, can you tell listeners who you are?
Married 45 yrs, with 3 children & several grandchildren. Partners in ministry–Parenting Made Practical.
Can you tell us the story of the day of the accident?
19 yrs ago, a truck with a horse trailer crossed the median and hit their van, causing it to roll three times. Carla was thrown from the car when they and their 15 yr old daughter, Amy, were driving home from an event 3 hours away. After yrs of PT, she can no longer stand or walk and lives with pain daily.
How did your day-to-day lives change?
An article on the Reuters website that came out in 2014 notes that
Children are susceptible to developing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, when their parents are seriously injured.
Researchers studied 175 pairs of parents and school-age children seen at a Seattle trauma center. They found that uninjured children whose parents were seriously hurt were twice as likely to experience PTSD symptoms months later as those whose parents were uninjured.
They also found that injured children tended to recover more slowly physically and emotionally if their parents were also injured than children whose parents were not seriously hurt.
Prior research has shown that when parents become ill with diseases such as HIV and cancer, their children are more at risk for emotional distress, substance abuse and risky sexual behavior, the authors write. Injuries parents sustain in combat can also have psychological effects on their children.
Nancy Kassam-Adams, a psychologist who directs the Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said she was surprised that the prevalence of PTSD in uninjured children with injured parents surpassed that of children who were injured themselves.
How did your kids react to Carla’s catastrophic injuries?
What were some of the most helpful things people did or said to you after the accident? The least helpful?
How have you each seen God at work in your lives since the accident?
Would you say you found abundance in suffering? Why or why not?
Carla would say she can be a victim or be victorious. Being negative changes nothing about the circumstances but will only make her bitter and angry. She chooses to be grateful and continuously look for things to be thankful for. Carla would say she thinks she has it easy compared to the role Joey has as her caregiver.
John Piper has said, “Occasionally weep deeply over the life you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Then wash your face. Trust God. And embrace the life you have.” I love this because it acknowledges our emotions and humanity, which God sees, too, by the way. It would be a little “off” if you DIDN’T grieve or have emotional moments given your situation! But, like the Psalms, there’s a turning…. We wail and cry, stomp our feet and shake our fists, and then we take a deep breath and splash some water on our faces and get on with it. (But there’s more than just a “getting on with it” drudgery….it seems impossible or unlikely but we can actually cultivate some gratitude and joy in there, too.)
What advice do you have for couples who are faced with a catastrophic physical event?
There is some great teaching that I (Renee) found recently about developing habits of joy. Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey have a series of books called The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled People, Marriages, Kids etc. It’s based on the latest neuroscience and attachment theory, and one of my favorite things they do is teach you exercises and tools you can put into practice immediately. They even have a free 28-day joy challenge that I (Renee) recently did and it was so fun and really helpful.
They suggest
- Knocking down your fear house (if you have one) and building a joy house.
- Filling your house with joy
- Attacking Toxic Thinking
- Growing Your Brain’s Joy Center (Those 28 habits!)
They write, “Joy is possible. It doesn’t have to be a random experience that catches you off guard now and then. Some of the most joyful people have endured unbelievable trauma.”
What things have you done to develop joy instead of fear or bitterness?
Similar question for Joey, who has been a 24/7 caregiver for almost 20 years.