Hello, my name is Benjie Haynie and I am a not-so-handy-capped crusader! I will turn 45 on May 29th.
Shortly before my first birthday, I contracted meningitis. I was still in the hospital on my first birthday. The doctors strapped a styrofoam cup to the top of my head to cover the incision from my head surgery. My parents told me they referred to that cup as my party hat.
I grew up in a Christian home. My dad was a minister and my mom was the piano player. Looking back, I am grateful for the solid foundation in the Christian faith that was laid for me. This, no doubt, helped me and my family cope with our life-changing, faith challenging event. This was especially hard for my dad. He desperately wanted a boy. After having three girls, they decided to have one more baby. He was so proud when I was born. But almost as quickly as joy set in, sorrow took over.
It’s only natural to ask God why when something like this happens. We were no different. My mom even recalled a time shortly after I got back home from the hospital when I was so depressed not being able to walk anymore that I banged my head repeatedly onto our kitchen table. She said by the time she got to me, my forehead was like mush!
Satan uses these vulnerable moments to try to get us to express anger at God. But anger only proves to steal away our joy. Instead, believing God to always have a good reason for allowing something we perceive as bad to happen, I started wondering if God had saved me from something much worse later on in my life.
Three of the gospels record Jesus asking what good does it profit us if we were to gain the world, yet forfeit our soul (Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36; Luke 9:25). There are many things I wonder if I missed out on in life. My dad has a video of me playing basketball with him before I got sick. Basketball is my favorite sport. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder what if. What if I became a basketball player? My dad was a pretty good athlete in his day. What if those athletic genes passed onto me? Would I have become famous? Just how much of the world could I have gained?
But then I thought God was asking me a what if question. What if I became such a success that I forfeited my soul? What if all those prayers from friends and family for God to heal me were answered? What if my becoming handicapped was God’s way of saving my soul from the foolish decisions I would have made if I never got sick? What if God knew better than me and my family? What if we should stick to letting God be God and us as His faithful, humble servants?
In a devotional I wrote, I addressed the question many people wrestle with: Why do bad things happen to good people? I then quoted Mark Spence, the Dean of the School of Biblical Evangelism, who said: "Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once; and He volunteered. The question should be, ‘why do good things happen to bad people?’”
Why do good things happen to bad people, indeed! Knowing we all deserve Hell, we can easily fit ourselves into the list of “bad people”. May this life be a reminder how unfair God really is! He has made a way for us to get to Heaven. How could He allow such a thing to happen? His love for us! It’s time we take advantage of this offer of salvation we do not deserve!
I don’t need to be able to walk and play sports in order to encourage others to faithfully serve Jesus Christ. This world has corrupted my body; but with God’s help, it will not corrupt my soul!
2 Corinthians 12:7b-10 (NIV)
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Benjie
What a testimony for our Lord! His story has touched my heart. ❤️🙏