During college, Glen House experienced a tragic skiing accident. His plans had been to graduate, go to medical school, and become a surgeon. After hitting an icy run, he flew headlong into a tree and sustained a massive head injury. The results were not good.

Glen was paralyzed.

With minimal use of his arms and hands, handling the delicate instruments and movements of surgery would have been impossible.

But he didn’t give up.

Within a few weeks, Glen returned to school to continue studying medicine. He was still determined to be a doctor—but for others like himself who had spinal cord injuries.

One day after he had started his practice, he was summoned to the hospital room of a new patient, a college student who was paralyzed due to a motorcycle accident. Understandably, the young man was distraught. “I just wanted to have a wife and children. I wanted a family.” His face fell.

Glen rolled his wheelchair closer to the young man’s bedside, pulled out his wallet, and retrieved a photo of his wife and two girls. He showed it to the young man. “Well, then get up and have a family,” Glen said.

Glen knew a secret that many of us forget when our hopes for a purposeful and meaningful future are stripped away through loss. He knew that when we have hope and faith in the unshakeable, that we will be unshakeable as well—and our confidence for a meaningful and purposeful future will remain intact.

If the object of my faith is my ability to sing, and I lose my voice due to an infection, all hope for a purposeful future is lost.

If the object of my faith is my ability to cultivate a happy marriage, but my mate files for divorce, all hope for a purposeful and meaningful future is lost.

If the object of my faith is my ability to be a rock climber, but then I lose that ability through blindness, all hope for a meaningful and purposeful future is lost.

But when the object of my faith is unshakeable, I will be unshakeable as well.

Romans 8:38-39 tells us the reason there is always room for faith and hope in a future filled with purpose, no matter our circumstances or what we have lost:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Because nothing can separate you from God’s love, there is nothing that can separate you from the purposes that He has for your life—nothing. Nothing can truly shake you. In this you can have hope and faith—and that is a promise that no one and no circumstance can take away.

Additional Resources

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