Welcome to Hope in the Morning, turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. Elizabeth Elliott once said, The deepest things that I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering, and out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things that I know about God. So I have to ask you today, do you think that there is purpose in your suffering? Joining us today to talk about this important topic is Twin City Bible Church Elder Mike Riles. Mike, I appreciate you joining us today. And I'm going to jump right in and just say that I think that you experienced something that many of us who lived through the epidemic of 2020 have experienced, but you experienced it on a different level than many of us did.
Can you tell us a little bit about your own story with suffering? Yeah, it was an interesting thing. At the time, and still I'm a letter carrier, U.S. Postal Service, and you know, driving to work was kind of like an apocalyptic movie or something.
You don't see anybody. It's just really weird. But it took me over a year once the coronavirus came around to actually get sick with it in August of 21. And it hit me pretty hard, basically from the time that I had the first cough to the time I had 103 fever, 103.5, that lasted 10 days. It took about eight hours.
First symptom to full-blown craziness. And it was very difficult. I was struggling for several days. And on the seventh day, I was going up to bed, and you know, we're monitoring my oxygen the whole time. And finally, I fell below 90, which is a good friend of mine, a doctor friend of mine told me is what you got to watch out for. And so I went all the way down to 86. And I wasn't coming back up.
So here we are. My son is driving me to the hospital because my wife also has COVID. She's really sick, but not like me. And on the way, I'm having to have this just strange conversation with my son that I wouldn't really think of. But I'm telling him where the life insurance policy is on the computer, where the passwords are, all these things, knowing that, you know, it's possible I won't be coming home. So when I get to the hospital, they check me again, oxygen level was now at 76.
And anything below I think 80, I was told your body starts slowly shutting organs down. Fortunately, I responded quickly to the oxygen they gave me at the time and came back up. And so that was how that went. How were you feeling in those moments that you saw your oxygen continuing to decline and you're having that conversation with your son? Did you did you have any fear in that moment? Did you feel completely at peace? Like what what was going on with you emotionally during that time? Well, you know, it was it was, I was so drained from the experience physically. And, you know, to some degree, emotionally that I didn't have a whole lot of feeling at that time.
But I did have a sense that this could be it and add conflicting emotions about that. Yeah. So with this being the time of COVID, you know, we know that period as being a very isolating period, you know, where we all were on lockdown. And what were the hospitals like?
You said it was about a year after COVID first hit? What were the hospitals like at that point? Well, fortunately, for me, the one I went to, I went to Davey, and they were doing quite well from everything that I've heard from other people who experienced hospitalizations. They, they, they were very, they took very good care of me. And the staff was kind and considerate and helpful.
And it was just all around good in that sense. Were you able to have any family with you? No, that was horrible. For two weeks, they would not allow anybody that I knew I didn't see a single face that I that I knew for two weeks before they lifted the quarantine.
Okay. So I'm assuming speaking even was difficult. It was difficult because your oxygen levels were so low. So you know, how did you how did you keep communication with your wife or with your kids during that time to even tell them how you were doing? Did they have to call into the nurses station to find out how you were doing?
No, I had my cell phone. Okay. So there was, you know, plenty of that. And a lot of it was text because it was just easier. It was it was really difficult to carry any kind of conversation verbally.
Okay. So what the nurses that came in, did you were you able to have conversations with them about anything? Interestingly enough, you know, I had this fever 103.5 for seven days in the hospital, then the next three days I have that same fever. It took that long break. The first Sunday after that, I was just so looking forward to being able to live stream our churches service and finally get to worship. And so I'm starting to watch it and all of a sudden as the music starts to play, I just I lost it. Because it just hit me like a ton of bricks that I can't see. I can't praise the Lord. I may never praise the Lord again with this mouth.
And I broke down in a way that I don't ever remember by just losing it. And right then, a male nurse comes in. And, you know, he's concerned. He's like, can I help you? You know, do you need a chaplain? Do you need a priest, whatever?
And I'm like, No. And, you know, with only two word sentences or two words at a time with each breath, I, you know, told him, I was fine. But, you know, I just am blown away that I can't praise the Lord with my voice. And, of course, that just started really deep spiritual conversation. And as it turns out, he had not been in church in years, he had been someone who was faithful to church years ago. And basically, as well as I could, I gave him a little gospel message and challenge him. I was like, you know, there is no context for Christianity outside of the local church.
You can't find that in your Bible. Yeah. So, yeah, right immediately, the first thing that happens when I think I can't praise the Lord with this mouth and walks a witnessing opportunity. Yeah, that's what God did.
Wow. And I mean, there's just there's different ways for us to honor the Lord and honor him through our suffering, you know, where you used the words that you had at the time, even though the breath in your lungs was a challenge, but the Lord sustained that for his purposes. And you don't always know what God is going to do with that.
You may never know exactly what the Lord did with that. But going back to what you were saying before, I think is so important that so many people think that it's not that important to be part of a local church that, you know, especially with all the different options we have now with with live streaming different services, and people are so busy that they really don't prioritize it. They don't think that it's that important. As long as they're hearing a message and they're in there in the word.
They often want to think that, well, this is just this is my relationship. It's my personal relationship with me and the Lord. And there is definitely an aspect of that.
But what you're saying is so, so crucial. And one of the reasons why the Lord tells us to be part of a local body is because that is how we serve one another. That's how we practice becoming Christ-like is that we get in there, we know each other's suffering. And just like, you know, you said that the church had served you and your wife Amanda while you were both sick. But if you weren't active members in the church and there consistently, we wouldn't have even known that you guys weren't sick.
I can't even imagine what that would have been like without my church family because it was just, they were precious. Yeah. And, you know, I think you had told me before that you're just kind of in a brain fog when you have a COVID. And I think, again, it's like many of us at this point, we've experienced some level of COVID. I feel like it's, you know, it's almost become like a cold because we've all caught it to some degree. Again, yours was much worse. But I think we realized that there are times when we're so weak that we have to depend on other people.
We have to depend whether that is for them making us meals or coming to the hospital and speaking truth over us, reminding you even, look how the Lord used this, how the Lord allowed you to use your voice to praise Him. And so with that, did you find that there were other things that you really missed in that isolation? Like what was that like? Yeah, you know, it was very difficult.
The brain fog that they talk about with COVID was very real. I had many books brought to me and I really couldn't, I didn't have any reading comprehension. So I only got something out of the Bible, which I had read and, you know, any other books that I had read, I had a couple other books that I'd read a couple of times. So without reading comprehension, all I could rely on was just what I remembered when I read these words.
Okay, here's the thoughts behind that. And that was all I could get out of it. Did you find that any scripture that you had previously memorized or any hymns maybe that you had known, did any of those come to the forefront of your mind? Or was your mind too foggy for that even? Not really. It was, I didn't have anything specific at the time.
Okay. So as far as your family not being able to be there, did that band continue during your entire hospital stay? No, just for two weeks. And unfortunately, after that, I could have two people at a time. But those first two weeks were just awful. And the first time I saw a face that I knew from church, I broke down again.
You know, I don't know, I think, partly the emotional thing of being sick is just something I, you know, haven't experienced before like that. But how long were you in the hospital total? 28 days. 28 days. Yeah.
After after two weeks, they thought I was on my way out. But I had two pulmonary embolisms that traveled from most likely my legs up into my lungs. Wow. So I have scarring in my lungs even now. Wow. I don't have quite the oxygen capability I used to have.
Yeah. Did it did this experience force you to kind of reconcile with your own, your own human frailty and just kind of, you know, I know, you and Amanda are very healthy people. And so I think sometimes we kind of depend a little bit on our health.
Was that something that was new for you to have that stripped away? Yeah, you know, it's, it's kind of like, you know, when when the Israelites would would just be, things would be going well. And they would just, oh, well, not really think about anything.
I'm just gonna Oh, there's a God I can worship, you know, and then God would send them trouble and they would repent and then, you know, rather rinse repeat, whatever. But for us, you know, we're healthy people. We're not thinking about things. And, but the advantage of the suffering of that time was, it really makes you pray. Yeah. You know, I, me personally, I think it's the experience of most believers, when things are going really well, we do not cozy up to God. When things go south, we just have a tendency to it sharpens the mind. And if the only good that comes out of it is that we get closer to the Lord, that's a tremendous good in and of itself.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think when when we suffer, it brings us to our knees, you know, it brings us to a point where we are stripped of everything that we think that we hold control. And the reality is, is that we hold control of nothing. But sometimes our suffering can be a great reminder of that. And when we come back, we're going to hear how his suffering helped him understand more fully what the purpose is in all of our suffering and what God says about that, and how God is still good and kind and faithful, even in our suffering. Have you ever walked through the deep suffering of a friend and been at a loss for what to say?
How can you comfort someone when they've just lost a loved one or been diagnosed with cancer? Join us on Hope in the Morning to hear testimonies of people who've gone through life's hardest trials, and to learn more about what God has done for trials, and share what you can do to serve others in similar circumstances. To learn more, visit us at HopeInTheMorning.org. Hope in the Morning is a listener-sponsored program that encourages the weary, equips those who walk beside them, and evangelizes the lost. If you want to partner with this ministry, visit HopeInTheMorning.org.
And may you be filled with hope as you continue this episode of Hope in the Morning. Who has known the mind of God or numbered his own days? Who can question any of his judgments or give counsel to his ways? He formed the beasts of earth and feeds them from his hand. He told the waters of their boundaries and he has numbered grains of sand. His mighty voice was all it took to make the moon and stars. So how can we, merely dust, think control is ours? Is not he the source of wisdom and the giver of all things?
He has intricately painted sunsets and given flight to wings. He formed each man while he was yet hidden in the womb. He alone can give the breath of life and raise the dead up from the tomb. Who are we to offer anything but praise and humbly bow before him submitting to his ways? Romans 11 verses 33 through 36 tells us, oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who became his counselor? For who has first given to him that it would be paid back to him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
So Mike, going back to your story of talking about how you had COVID and your oxygen levels were dangerously low. We have not numbered our own days. We don't know. You know we don't know, we don't know if today could be the day that we meet the Lord, that we're face to face. And so every chance we get is is an opportunity to proclaim his goodness to the land of the living even in our suffering. And so when when we suffer so often it's easy to think why?
What is the purpose of this? Especially you know I know that you are are part of the team at our church that goes around and helps do some of the counseling for people that are going through hard times that you when when my dad was dying you were one of the faithful people that came and you were there. You know I mean we joke but we joke because after my dad passed away and he was on hospice at our house you came in your mail carrier uniform and we were saying we're going to keep the neighbors guessing because now we've brought in the mail service. But you you were compassionate and but there are those questions. When you face trials there's so many times where like with my dad we felt like my dad loved the Lord. My dad was faithfully teaching his word. He was very intricate in sharing the gospel with my children. And you know I have one child in particular that really did not didn't didn't want to speak openly about her questions concerning the Lord to anybody but Papa. You know and so to us we looked at that in our human finite mind and thought why why would God take him now when he seems to be being right in the prime of being used when he loves the Lord he wants to share the gospel with everybody he comes into contact with.
What is the purpose of our suffering when when a child is taken from their parents and when your spouse suddenly gets sick and dies what is the purpose in our suffering? You know it's it's a really difficult question that we should be able to answer in that God is always doing something to glorify himself. And for us in those situations it's extremely difficult to see that especially with someone like Robert. Robert could tell someone that they deserve to go to hell and they would actually like him after he said it.
Amazing man. But most of the time we don't have cut and dry clear answers for why particular evil comes our way. Just following up on the story earlier you know if I had not had that experience with what happened with the nurse that came in at that time the thought never would have occurred to me with my brain fog. Hey I can witness to the rest of these people. So I wrote up a big thank you note with a gospel included in it and my wife put together some stuff a goodie basket for everybody and we just blessed the whole floor with that.
In that case it's extremely easy. You can see it. Obviously some good came out of that. But who knows what happened with people who were touched by Robert's death by the message that was preached at his service. By just the impact he had on people's lives that was shared by so many at the time. There's no way that we could ever know that but we do know that all things work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose. To those who love the Lord. And it's Romans 8 28 and it doesn't say that all things are good.
It just says that all things work together for good. And so often times for us we have to face the downside of that and deal with it. But at the very least we are blessed with the ability to really draw near to God and the prompting because we don't have any other choice. Yeah so you know I think another question that often comes to mind when we suffer is that we know we know that God is never changing and with that when we go through something that feels unbearably hard. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile some of God's character traits. You know God being good. God being merciful. You know again just bringing in one of my own recent experiences is you know in my latest miscarriage that was a hard thing to see God as merciful.
And I think that that's something that we understand you know we think we think like with my husband I wouldn't when we found out we're pregnant with that child. These things go through your mind you think oh the Lord is being so merciful. He allowed our last child to die because he wanted this child to be born around my parents anniversary so that it would be a blessing to my mom around a hard time and we try and reconcile like that is just part of our humanness. And so when when things happen that are completely out of our plan you know mind you as we read in Romans God's plan is so far above our own but in our own human mind it's so easy to think why is God not showing me mercy?
Why is God not hearing my prayers? What do you say as a counselor to somebody that is struggling with that with somebody whose child maybe is going through cancer and they're praying continuously Lord please have mercy on my child please heal my child and God chooses not to do that. How do we still trust that there's a purpose in that suffering and that God's character is still is still fully merciful fully loving?
How do you counsel people in those situations? Yeah for the most part you know in some ways you can boil it down in the simplicity of Romans 3 26. You know in the same event where the greatest evil that was ever perpetrated on anyone the only innocent man who ever lived was put to death on a cross. A shameful extremely painful death but in that verse it says that God is both the just and the justifier of them who believe and we have we have Jesus who empathizes with us and he suffered in a way that that we can't even imagine not just taking on sin but but the pain but more than that he is he is there with us and in all these things we actually participate in the same type of suffering we get conformed to the image of Christ when we suffer as Christ suffered. Yeah I love that and I think you know talking back to what you kind of mentioned previously in I think it's Psalm 116 it talks about because he bends down to listen I will pray as long as I have breath in my lungs and you know you had you had mentioned how you prayed to the Lord when you were going through your COVID scare and just not knowing what the Lord would have in store for you and you know oftentimes when we go through our darkest valleys he becomes that much more of a bright light to us because we are so longing for the light we are longing for comfort and how would you how would you express that to our listeners as far as like the comfort that we get through prayer maybe even when we we don't know what to say or we feel like I don't have the right words to say but your heart is so heavy with the grief that the Lord is allowing you to go through knowing that he does have a purpose in it that it is as you were saying that it is refining us making us more like Christ as we suffer that we are becoming more like him how how can we find comfort in our prayer life through through those immense sufferings at the at the root I think we have to trust that God is good in all things even when we can't see it humanly speaking in our fallen nature and and just through human eyes we can't see all that he's accomplishing through things that in our eyes just don't make sense you know your Robert's death for example but there's no telling the fruit that's come from that we may never know odds are we won't but more than anything else we know that he is constantly working out what is good for us and what is best for us is is our holiness not that not that we're we're perfect or anything like that but he is constantly growing us in grace growing us spiritually and he's more concerned with our holiness than our happiness but that don't read that wrong as we grow holy we grow happy we actually get more joy in life and ultimately we're able to actually withstand things the world can't understand the world can't make sense of losing someone we actually have a hope we have a hope that we'll see them again whereas for the world they have no hope what is their hope yeah their hope is that they will forget we don't have to forget we can remember and we can take joy in the fact that we can be reunited yeah that the Lord will give us beauty for our ashes and you know even even as you were in the hospital able to share from your brokenness because here you are physically a broken man you know and that's why here in the hospital and yet the Lord allowed you to share the goodness of the Lord because you are broken and I think that that's something that is so beautiful for us to think about how the Lord he he doesn't discard our broken pieces he uses them and he actually multiplies the ways that he can use them if we are willing to be be a tool in his hands and share our stories and share our weaknesses in order to proclaim his strength do you have a verse that you can kind of close us out on to give us a hope in our suffering sure 1st Peter chapter 5 verse 10 and after you have suffered a little while the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore confirm strengthen and establish you the Lord will restore you he will establish you he will bring you peace and comfort and hope even when you feel like you are in your deepest darkest season of mourning thank you for joining us today on this episode hope in the morning is a non-profit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting equip those who walk beside them and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ to partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor please visit hope in the morning.org your donation helps keep these stories of hope on the air and helps tangibly meet the needs of the hurting
