CHRONIC ILLNESS QUOTES

QUOTES

"I have been of more service to God disabled than during my able-bodied years. This didn't happen despite my disability, but because of my disability." -- Mark Pickup (disabled with multiple sclerosis) 

"Don't give up. Don't lose hope. Don't sell out." -- Christopher Reeve Website

There are two kinds of "disabled" persons: Those who dwell on what they have lost and those who concentrate on what they have left. -- Thomas S. Szasz

"I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work and my God." -- Helen Keller Website

"God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to Him, force us to depend on grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, spend our time wisely, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in time of sorrow, increase faith, and strengthen character." -- Joni Eareckson Tada

One thing we may be sure of, however: For the believer all pain has meaning; all adversity is profitable. There is no question that adversity is difficult. It usually takes us by surprise and seems to strike where we are most vulnerable. To us it often appears completely senseless and irrational, but to God none of it is either senseless or irrational. He has a purpose in every pain He brings or allows in our lives. We can be sure that in some way He intends it for our profit and His glory. -- Jerry Bridges Navigators

"God's purpose in increasing our trials is to sensitize us to people we never would have been able to relate to otherwise." -- Joni Eareckson Tada

"God deliberately chooses weak, suffering and unlikely candidates to get His work done, so that in the end, the glory goes to God and not to the person." -- Joni Eareckson Tada Website

Even though I have rough moments in my wheelchair, for the most part I consider my paralysis a gift. Just as Jesus exchanged the meaning of the Cross from a symbol of torture to one of hope and salvation, He gives me the grace to do the same with my chair. If a cross can become a blessing, so can a wheelchair. The wheelchair, in a sense, is behind me now. The despair is over. There are now other crosses to bear, other "wheelchairs" in my life to be exchanged into gifts. -- Joni Eareckson Tada

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal: nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. -- Thomas Jefferson

Joy is not the absence of suffering. It is the presence of God. -- R Schuller

We all know people who have been made much meaner and more irritable and more intolerable to live with by suffering: it is not right to say that all suffering perfects. It only perfects one type of person...the one who accepts the call of God in Christ Jesus. -- Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest

"I believe we all have disabilities, whether it's a physical disability or fear or guilt," he said. "Fear or guilt will hold you back more than the loss of arms and legs. I would like to say to everybody out there that you should just know that God loves you. I don't know your pain and God is the only one that can tell you the two things that your soul longs to hear: number one that you are loved and number two, every thing's going to be ok." -- Nick Vujicic Website, Website