Suffering in Silence

I see people everyday and I can not look at them and tell what they are going though. I know from living life that you are either going through a trial or tribulation or coming out of one. Trials are defined as a testing, a painful suffering. Tribulations are severe affliction, distresses of life. I discovered that I can make it through all things with the Lords helping hand.

For months when I was a baby my mother would drop me off at the day care seconds latter my granny would come pick me up. My granny was furious saying, “Beverly Ann, my grand baby ain’t staying in no daycare, them folk don’t know how to take care of her.” From then on, my granny and I had close loving relationship. Out of all of the grandkids, I was her pick. I always spend time with my granny, especially when she became ill. She would take 30 minutes getting from the house to the car, to go do her shopping at Fiesta. I could still hear her saying “I want to get me some of that fish, grapes, watermelon, cantaloupe, and a twelve pack of coke.” In March of this year my granny went to be with Jesus. I was absolutely distraught by this. I did not know how the family would continue to live life, for our focal point had been taken away. My granny had been ill 5 years. In all that time I was unprepared for the loss. It was God that brought me through. He told me not to give up, keep pressing on for the prize. While she lay on her hospital bed I leaned down to tell her, “I promise I will get my college education and start my own business.”

My life was further altered when my dearly beloved husband became a victim of an auto-pedestrian accident. This event sent me into a state of depression. For 7 months I was in a state of depression. Depression is a weird thing, others noticed but I did not until it had passed. I went from laying next to him every night, to sitting in a chair next to his bed holding his hand. The accident left him totally paralyzed. His left leg (where the accident had the most impact) was amputated. He lost his speech. Where he once ate food by mouth it was replaced by tube feedings. This vibrant active young man now has to depend on others to provide every function for him. He is in a nursing home 10 minutes away from me. With creativity, we still have an active loving marriage.

As I look back on my life, I realized that everything occurring good or bad in life is for God’s glory. Psalms 121 questions where does my help come from? I know that I only made it through the hardships of life because of the Lords help. I would have given up long ago and let life pass me by, but the Lord sought something greater planned for my life. Those same trials that had me down are the same ones that continue to motivate me to continue my education.

Suffering in silence is what my granny went through, and my husband is going through. In living through these trials I delight in tribulation because now I am totally dependant upon God, exactly where He wants me to be. I learned that I can come out of the storm, only when I have learned the lesson that was intended for me. My plight in life is to obtain my college education and use it for the good of the disabled population and their families. Maybe then they won’t have to suffer in silence.

By La`kesha Pitts