Stephanie Tait - The View from Rock Bottom: Discovering God’s Embrace in our Pain

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

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Cover design by Kara Klontz Design

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The View from Rock Bottom

Copyright 2019 by Stephanie Tait

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97408

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-7222-2 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-7223-9 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

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For Brent

I can scarcely imagine the glory of the table before you now,

but I suspect youre still saving a seat beside you for Aidan.

Contents

Years ago I read a book called The Gift of Pain, cowritten by renowned surgeon Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey. Dr. Brand had spent a good deal of his distinguished medical career studying, understanding, and treating people with leprosy. Among endless misconceptions about leprosy, there is a common belief that the diseases victims succumb to death from the diseased flesh itself. In truth, most deaths from leprosy result from painlessness-related injury or damage. Nerve damage has removed the ability for a person to feel pain, and therefore there is no intuitive ability to avoid or withdraw from it. If you cant experience the agony of your broken foot, there is nothing to prevent you from running on it, nor would you know to pull your hand back from an open flame.

Brands integral study on the effects of the absence of physical pain translates easily to our spiritual and emotional lives. Pain is a gift. It instructs. It warns. Its tutelage is harrowing. Agonizing. And yet it shapes our very sacred souls.

One of those dear suffering-shaped souls has written the special book youre holding right now. I became familiar with Stephanie Tait the way many people find themselves in unexpected friendship these days online. Over time, she has shared pieces of her story on social media and was gracious in telling me how songs Id written had met her in some very dark places. Wisely, someone persuaded her to take us into the deeper parts of her story on these pages.

Stephanie joins a large club of those of us who were churchgoing, Bible-believing, good-choice-making, clean-living Christian kids. We did all these things. And then we were ready for all the blessings. Ready for the fulfilled promises. Did our part the way we were told to and were ready for God to make good on His end. Ready and still waiting. More waiting. And not at all ready for year after year of loss. Grief. Financial ruin. Physical devastation. Darkness. And despair.

The book you are holding is one womans arduous and bravely personal examination of how wrong our theology is about suffering. How damaged our lens is. In story after story of her own broken journey, she shakes off the idea that our lives are meant to be merely survived with Gods help, and she gently invites us to see the gift in our pain. What it points us to. What it leads us away from. How it gathers us uniquely into the arms of our community, our confidants, and our Savior. Digging into sacred Scripture, not as anecdotal hopey verses, but as the kind of crinkled-up and stained road map you dig out of your pocket to pore over when you cant make sense of yourself or the world around you.

Thank you, Stephanie, for the wildly vulnerable decision to allow us to bear witness to your journey and your relationship with pain. Thank you for respecting suffering for the teacher it is, and for respecting us as the students we will all be, at one time, whether or not were ready. Because no one ever is.

I f you picked up this book to hear a testimony of how God worked even the seemingly terrible parts of a life into a beautiful surprise ending where with a little hindsight everything suddenly made sense

If youre walking through pain and have reached out in your desperation to this book, hoping to hear a story of someone whos already made it successfully to the other side

If youre waiting for your prayer to be answered and are looking to my story to assure yourself that God will one day give you the desires of your heart if you only hold on a little longer

If youre weary and broken and longing for someone to show how to get past this season of struggle or how to identify the lesson God is surely trying to teach you in all this so He will finally allow you to move beyond it

Im sorry, dear friend, but this is not that book.

When I set out to write, I knew I was walking into something that would challenge me beyond anything I had ever experienced. Much like the old adage that reminds us what happens when we pray for patience, when you commit to exploring the depths of Gods presence in suffering you have to be fully prepared for Him to faithfully provide the source material you need. He has walked me through more pain than I ever thought possible to bear, and if I had known the details of His plan from the start, I likely would have pleaded for Him to pass me over for this calling.

This, my friend, is a present-tense testimony. This book springs directly from a heart still raw with grief and a body still inflicted with very real pain and disease. I have written this book not as a memoir of a journey I once had, but as letters from a woman still very much traveling this same road with God. A woman whos still not sure exactly how His plans will unfold. As one of my former pastors would commonly say, None of us has arrived yet, least of all me.

I cant give you a story with a happy ending, because my story doesnt have an ending yet.

There will be no page where I come to the beautiful realization that my seven miscarriages were perfectly timed blessings that led me to adopt seven orphans from Africa into our home and hearts.

There will be no page where I share that God miraculously cured my Lyme disease to show His glory and power, and Ive now gone on to live in health and prosperity, writing and speaking about my experiences.