Lord, your no answer to physical healing meant yes to a deeper healing—a better one. Your answer has bound me to other believers and taught me so much about myself. It’s purged sin from my life, it’s strengthened my commitment to you, forced me to depend on your grace. Your wiser, deeper answer has stretched my hope, refined my faith, and helped me to know you better. And you are good. You are so good....

It wasn’t often I could presuppose God’s motives, but I could this one. He had brought me to the Pool of Bethseda that I might make an altar of remembrance out of the ruins. That I might see—and thank him for—for the wiser choice, the better answer, the harder yet richer path....he had brought me here, all the way from home—halfway around the earth—so I could declare to anyone within earshot of the whole universe, to anyone who might care, that yes—there are more important things in life than walking.

(Joni Eareckson Tada, excerpted from The God I Love [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, p. 356-7])