Stop concentrating so much on what God is asking of you; start focusing on what he’s already given you. When Christ endured the brutal whip, the jeering and fist-striking — when he suffered more than any of us have, he was standing in your place. You and I deserved the bloodlust torture Christ endured, for he was bearing your sins. Your condemnation became his, and his righteousness became yours. God intends for you every good imaginable.

Vicky Olivas stared into space as she dressed for a job interview. It was spring of 1976, and her husband had just left her and their two-year-old son for someone else. Facing an uncertain future, she had to start somewhere.

Vicky had problems finding the address the employment agency gave her. A passerby pointed her down an alley, the last door on the right. She stepped into a front office that smelled damp and closed in. “Is anyone here?” she called, making her way down a hallway that opened into a warehouse. She found two men sitting at a desk.

After introductions, the boss leaned back and looked Vicky over. She felt uneasy under his stare. He directed her to a room to fill out forms, and as she wrote, she kept thinking, I shouldn’t be here. Something’s not right. Then the man shut the door and clicked the lock. Suddenly, he grabbed her chest and threw her against the wall. “I asked them to send someone like you,” he hissed, ripping her blouse. Vicky fought to push him away, and then — bang! The room spiraled as she slumped to the floor. She had been shot in the neck.

Panicking, the man dragged her limp body into a bathroom. She felt something warm trickle down her neck: blood. Is he going to kill me? In a crazy turnabout, he lugged her to his car, dumped her off at a nearby hospital, and fled. An ER team worked on Vicky while she tried to explain what happened. Nobody believed her until the police went to the warehouse and found her purse, her blood, and the gun in the trash can.

The man was arrested. Although he had three other convictions of attempted rape, he was released after three years in jail. Vicky was handed a lifetime sentence of quadriplegia.

Our Greatest Mercy

I met Vicky in the summer of 1979, a few years after the assault. She was sitting slumped in her wheelchair, as if still recounting her losses. I parked my chair next to hers and struck up a conversation, and as we talked I recognized another loss, far greater than the others: Vicky was dead spiritually.

Hidden mercies lurk in tragedies like hers. By tasting suffering in this life — like a splash from hell — people are often driven to ponder what may face them in the next life. Vicky and I talked about this during the summer, and God awakened in her an interest in the Bible. By the season’s end, she knew she had an eternal soul and that something cosmic was at stake — a heaven to be reached and a hell to be avoided.

Vicky eventually experienced inner healing in Christ, and she wasted no time in getting involved in a Bible study with me and a few friends. With two quadriplegics in the room, it was inevitable that we’d turn to Romans 8, perhaps the greatest charter of gospel comforts for God’s people.

We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28–29)

Light sparkled in the eyes of my friend. In Romans 8:28, she found meaning to her pain, for had she not been paralyzed, Vicky might never have come to know Jesus Christ. God was working even that dreadful day for her good.

God’s Idea of ‘Good’

When God lobs a hand grenade into life and rattles our faith to the core, we wonder how he’ll work the pieces of shrapnel together for our good. What does good mean, anyway?

Jesus says in Matthew 7:11, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Then there is Jeremiah 32:41: “I [the Lord] will rejoice in doing them good . . . with all my heart and with all my soul.” And Psalm 84:11: “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”

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