Vaneetha Risner
I’m passionate about helping people find hope in their suffering. All my books: the Bible Study, Desperate For Hope, my memoir, Walking Through Fire, and my devotional, The Scars That Have Shaped Me, encourage people to turn to Christ in their pain. My story includes childhood bullying, losing an infant son, developing post-polio syndrome, and going through an unwanted divorce. Some of my greatest joys are being a wife to Joel and a mother to Katie and Kristi and you can find me embarrassing them in Raleigh, NC. I write regularly for Desiring God, and have been featured on Family LifeToday, Joni & Friends, and Christianity Today.
We can trust God with the future since we can’t think beyond today.
Watch “Worth Every Second”
God met me in an unmistakable way in my suffering and I write so that others can experience that as well.
Vaneetha and Joel
This is My Story
I contracted polio as an infant and spent much of my childhood feeling like an outcast. I lived in and out of hospitals for years, trying to fit in to both worlds. On the outside I looked like the good girl, but inside I was a mess. Insecure and bitter, I never felt that I belonged anywhere.
I grew up going to church, yet it never meant anything to me. Church was filled with hypocrites, so I fit right in.
But when I was 16 years old, I met Jesus. And that changed everything.
I started reading the Bible and praying, wanting to serve God with my life. And I assumed serving Him would be easy. After all, I’d been through a big trial already. Surely, I wouldn’t have to go through anything else. Wasn’t that in the Bible somewhere?
Things went smoothly for a while. I went to college, worked, and went to grad school where I met my husband. I had a fulfilling career and two beautiful daughters. I felt that I was deservedly enjoying the perfect Christian life.
But somewhere in the next dozen years, my amazing life unraveled.
I buried an infant son due to a doctor’s foolish mistake. Then debilitating pain led to a diagnosis of post-polio syndrome that will eventually put me in a wheelchair, with ever diminishing use of my limbs. And then my husband left us and moved away, leaving me to care for our two adolescent daughters by myself.
Losing my child, my health, and my marriage almost made me lose my mind. It was crushing.
After each catastrophic event, I wondered if life would ever be good again. If I’d ever laugh again. If I‘d ever adjust to this new normal.
He has carried me through the darkest of days and given me hope in the pouring rain. The One who holds the universe, holds me tenderly. He has taught me that joy and gratitude are choices. They are independent of circumstances.
Six years after my first husband left, I married Joel, who is the answer to countless prayers. In him I see the fulfillment of Joel 2:25, “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.”
Yet I know my life on this earth will never be perfect. What looks like a bow today may unravel tomorrow.
New struggles may take the place of old ones. But God’s faithfulness will remain constant, for it is unchanging.
FAQs
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- Remember that Jesus loves you.
- Pray.
- Open the Bible.
- Remind yourself that you are not alone in your suffering.
- Set your mind on heaven.
- Remember that God's ways are higher than your ways.
- Remember that this life is all about God.
Download the “Falling Apart” PDF -
- Lament. The Bible encourages us to candidly engage God and not silently pull away.
- Consider gratitude. Write about what you can be grateful for.
- Journal. Journaling helps us process our emotions. Start with reviewing yesterday.
- Do something for someone else. This can change our perspective.
- Memorize Scripture. Memorize a verse and keep repeating it.
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John Piper | Occasionally, weep deeply over the life that you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that he’s given you
Joni Eareckson Tada | Every sorrow we taste will one day prove to be the best possible thing that could’ve happened. We will thank God endlessly in heaven for the trials he sent us here
Elisabeth Elliot | God included the hardships of my life in his original plan. Nothing takes him by surprise. Nothing is for nothing. His plan is to make me holy, and hardship is indispensable for that as long as I live in this hard old world. All I have to do is accept it.
Samuel Rutherford | If the Lord calls you to suffering, be not dismayed, for with it he will provide a deeper portion of Christ.
Corrie TenBoom | When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.
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God wants us to come to Him in truth. And so the Bible doesn't whitewash the raw emotions of its writers who often cry out to God in anguish, fear, and frustration when life ceases to make sense.
The Bible is shockingly honest. And because of that, I can be honest as well.
People throughout the Bible all talked directly to God, which was the first step to healing. They named their disappointments and voiced their struggles before Him. They needed to know that God understood them. And that they could be truthful with Him. With no pretense or platitudes. Just raw honesty, acknowledging their pain before God.
Part of really living is being willing to face sadness. Not wallowing in my pain, refusing to be comforted, but honestly and openly telling God where I am and asking Him to show me truth.
Letting Him, the God of all comfort, comfort me. Letting Him, the God of hope, fill me with hope. And letting Him, the man of sorrows acquainted with grief, bear my sorrows for me.
Pouring my heart out to God changes me.
As I write and pray, I sense His movement in my life. He comforts me. He fills me with hope. He bears my sorrows. He draws near to me.
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Have you ever felt distant from God? I have. I have vacillated between times of intense closeness to God, times of faith with little fervor, and times of feeling removed and disconnected.
When I’ve felt distant I’ve wondered, ‘What is the key to being connected to God? Is it obedience to God’s commands? Is it regular fellowship and accountability with other believers? Is it suffering?’
While all those things can draw us close to God, I have discovered that the fundamental requirement is very simple.
Closeness to God requires that I seek him. That is all. Seeking God means looking to the Lord for all my needs, repenting of sin, and desiring to be close to him.
King Asa provides a vivid example. In his early life, he was faced with a huge battle against the Ethiopian army. With limited resources and no human chance of success, Asa turned to God. He sought God for this huge endeavor because God was his only hope. And God delivered him in a phenomenal way.
But later in his life, Asa became more self-confident. In a much smaller battle, Asa didn’t seek God but sought an alliance with another king instead. He won the battle, but God sent a prophet to rebuke Asa for not seeking God first. Rather than repent, Asa punished the prophet. Several years later, Asa came down with a terrible disease in his feet. Yet he refused to seek the Lord and just sought doctors. And Asa died, without Scripture recording he ever sought God again. (2 Chronicles 14-16).
As Deuteronomy 4: 29-30 says, “But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice.”
We will find God when we seek him. And he knows that tribulation often drives us to return to him, which is a great mercy. It has been for me. Suffering was God’s invitation to lean into him. It forged my faith, which I see in retrospect was a tremendous gift.
But that is not true for everyone. Suffering doesn’t drive everyone to God. At the end of his life, Asa was suffering terribly physically. But he died in his agony without knowing the comfort of God because he didn’t seek God.
The key to a deep walk with God and a sense of his presence is not trials. It is simply seeking God. That is all.
Seeking God involves intentionally setting aside time to spend with him. Reading the Bible and praying. Drawing near to him and crying out to him. Listening to his voice and repenting of my sin.
I have found that I can have that deep communion with God, even when I’m not in despair. It takes more effort, but the rewards are the same. When I open my Bible and ask God to teach me, he does. When I cry out to him for help, he responds. When I listen for his voice, he speaks.
When I seek God, I find him. Jesus promises that I will.
As Jeremiah 29:12-13 says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
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- Show up.
- Call and check in regularly.
- Write a note.
- Offer concrete, personal help.
- Pool funds with others for outside services.
- Offer respite.
- Engage their children regularly.
- Engage even when it's difficult.
- Point them to the Lord, but don't preach.
- Pray for them.
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- Isaiah 43: 1-2 | Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
- Psalm 46:1-3 | God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
- 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 | So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
- Matt 11:28-29 | Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
- Psalm 119:25 | My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!