Faith Talks host: Hello, I’m Jana Faith, and welcome to episode eight of Faith Talks.

Yes, you might have noticed that the intro sounded a little bit different than normal.

No Anna Faith this week, and no, she did not get COVID, but actually I’m with the War of Special Forces of Special Forces team this week in Virginia, and she’s in Wisconsin.

So I’m doing the podcast alone.

Well, not quite alone.

I have here with me Mrs.

Biggs, and she is the pastor’s wife here at Crossroads Baptist Church, and she’s a teacher, actually at a Christian school in the area, and she’s a wife and a mother of many children.

And God has really brought Mrs.

Biggs just really quite through a journey of faith, especially in the past few years, just through different trials she’s gone through.

And just as we were talking on Sunday about her life, I was thinking through the fruit of the Spirit, which is kind of the theme we’re on right now.

And I was looking through different ones that we had left, and I realized the fruit meekness really went a lot along with Mrs.

Biggs’ life and her story.

So today we’re going to be discussing the fruit meekness.

So when you hear the word meekness, you might think of, oh, you know, like one of those quiet people or somebody who’s mild-mannered or somebody who’s moderate, quiet, submissive.

And those definitely give, you know, different angles of meekness.

But I was especially just struck with the definition that meekness is enduring injury with patience and without resentment.

And those injuries we all have in our life, they might be emotional or maybe a mental thing. but sometimes they are physical.

And, you know, you might be one of those people who lives every day in pain or maybe part of you doesn’t quite work as well.

And it’s easy to resent those weaknesses in our life and to just really blame God and want to give up at times.

And Mrs.

Biggs has really experienced a lot of physical trials in her life, and I think it’s just really incredible to hear just her journey she’s gone through and how she responded to it.

So could you just share us a little bit about your leg and what, I guess, where did you first start noticing there was something wrong with your leg?

Faith Talks host: All right.

Well, in college, I had fallen, I had been in college for two weeks.

So just as college freshman, had no idea what was going on, but I had fallen and gotten a skin infection.

But because of not having a car on campus, the infirmary was off campus.

I did not get it looked at.

So the infection that normally would be easily treatable ended up going into my knee joint as well as, at that point, a lot of my leg.

And so I’d had the surgeries to clean that infection out, but there seemed to be some kind of latent infection.

So in other words, if there was any trauma to the joint or there was a lot of impact to that joint, an infection would pop back up.

So from my freshman year in college, for the next six years, I probably had 15, almost 20 knee surgeries just from that.

But because of all those infections, it had eaten away at a lot of the cartilage in my joint.

So I’m hitting 55, and the knee was really giving me a hard time.

So in August of 2017, I had a knee replacement.

And the other knee, thank the Lord, is fine.

But five weeks into that, after that replacement, it got infected.

So that early on, they do try to just do a washout and kind of clean out the material.

But it didn’t work.

Eventually, I had to have the hardware taken out and some spacers put in.

So we spent another six surgeries just trying to get rid of that infection.

And then in August 2019, I got another infection.

And at that point, they said, the only way I’m going to get rid of this is to amputate.

So when you hear that word and decision is, do I get my leg cut off above the knee because the knee was an issue and go the rest of my life like that?

Or do I take a chance?

But the pain was so bad with that particular infection.

I couldn’t stand to move the trip up to the hospital to begin with.

Every little bump, I would scream out in pain.

So I could not take it anymore.

And so we did the amputation probably about five inches above my knee.

Faith Talks host: Wow.

And I was just asking her a couple questions even last night about how it felt to look down and realize I don’t have a leg anymore, you know, just even in the hospital.

And just a question, do you ever feel, this is kind of a dumb question because of course you would.

But how do you feel, you know, self-conscious about when you’re around people and, you know, here they look down and see that you don’t have a leg?

She does have a leg.

It’s just not normal.

It’s a metal leg, yes.

Faith Talks host: I am grateful that I live in the day in which I do because the prostheses have come so far.

But I’m two years later.

So I just celebrated three weeks ago my two-year anniversary.

But I still today, like if I take, when I take my prosthesis off at night and I go, so then I’m on crutches, go over to the, to wash off the liner and let it dry for the night.

I get my reflection in the doorway.

And it’s still, it’s like I look at that and this is my life.

This is my life without a leg.

And yes, I, so it’s not something that goes away.

I, you know, I look, I watch other people, I watch my daughter-in-law kind of run, run in place and trying to get some minutes for her exercise minutes right there in the room and thinking, I can’t do that.

Faith Talks host: Just looking back, was there any specific verse that God used in your heart through the trial or something that really, you know, popped out to you or was made special?

Faith Talks host: Yes, well, obviously Paul had issues.

He had something where he asked God three times, will you take this away?

And where he is told, Paul is told, my grace is sufficient to you.

And there have been so many times I’ve had to think of that, that God’s grace is sufficient.

And the grace, we want to almost equate that as a cure.

You know, on the Cuban level, we want to say grace is a cure.

No, God does not say that he is going to cure us on this side of heaven, but he will give us what we need to get through.

So for me to go without a leg for the rest of my life, it is, you know, his grace is going to be all I need because his strength is made perfect.

It’s made complete in my weakness.

And I am very, you know, when I lost those babies, I was very weak.

You know, when I went through the trials with the liver thing, I mean, that stunk.

I was weak.

And then obviously with the amputation, I’m weak.

But God uses that weakness to show his strength.

Faith Talks host: And I think it’s interesting talking about weakness, just of the contrast of meekness versus weakness, which you’re talking about this, but a weakness is like, you know, somebody’s weak, they can’t do anything, a person who can’t do anything.

And a meek person is someone who they can do something, but they choose not to.

And I think of, you know, we think of meekness almost as a negative thing or something, you know.

But the greatest, most powerful, you know, person that ever walked the planet called himself meek, Jesus Christ.

And I think that’s so neat that God even showed you your own weakness just so you’re even more willing to just accept his strength.

Right.

And you realize that that does make your weakness perfect.

Exactly.

Because it opens you up for that opportunity to have God just step right in your life.

Faith Talks host: Right, because it’s through those areas where I’m realizing, like, I am on total reliance on him.

And then, you know, like the meekness is kind of like this power, but it’s under control.

So as a teacher, now I have two classes that are junior high.

Now, I’m sorry, junior high boys can be a little obnoxious.

So I have the power in that situation to really squash them down.

And so it does take that meekness in those situations to say, no, I’m going to control how I really want to react, how I really want to react when my leg is not there anymore.

Faith Talks host: That word meekness in the Greek is actually like referring to like a meek war horse that’s tamed and bridled, like you said, that strength under control.

He’s got all this strength, but he’s willing to follow his master’s command, whatever his master tells him to do.

It might not be what the horse wants to do, but it’s what the master commands, so he’s willing to just put that strength under control.

I know you were mentioning last night just about how a lot of times we think of good as happy.

I’ve been thinking about that all day.

Like even today, I was thinking about that, and that’s so true.

A lot of times we’re like, oh, that’s not good in my life because that’s not a happy thing.

Faith Talks host: Right, right.

And when looking back, and like every lady can do this, they can look back at those things where they would not equate them with being good.

That was not a good thing.

My leg being not there anymore is not a good thing in itself.

It has been a lot of headaches.

But what can come from that?

What I’ve been able to experience in these last two years, the relationships that I’ve been able to make, the people that God has given me to be able to talk to and to share with is so awesome.

The amputation is not good.

Walking with a prosthesis, the robot leg, how’d you get a robot leg?

All the kids.

Yeah, they’re like that.

But what has come from that?

I would never have those opportunities.

Again, I wouldn’t have chosen those, but the opportunities God has given me to talk to people, and even through all this, even if it was just one, but it’s been multiple people that I have been able to share the gospel with in an open forum because they’re asking me about my leg.

Faith Talks host: I think of the song, It Will Be Worth It All.

Yes.

It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.

Life’s trials will seem so small when we see him.

I was thinking of those words as you were speaking, but that is so true.

When you get to heaven, you’re going to realize maybe some of those things you wouldn’t have put on your happy list are actually the greatest blessings, blessings in disguise that God put in your life.

I was also thinking of the verse, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Of just how God, through your meekness that he’s brought you on, you’ve inherited the earth of so many different lives you’ve been able to touch, you know, just because of allowing that, you know, the potter to mold the clay and remove some, you know.

Faith Talks host: He did.

He definitely removed part of it.

But I’m able to let God’s light shine through me.

It is not me because I would not shine, but allowing others to see him through what he’s doing in my life.

Because they think I should be mad.

I should just sit around and do nothing because I don’t have a leg.

It’s my excuse.

Faith Talks host: And on her account, I was actually driving down the street on Monday, and I saw somebody working out, you know, going along the road, working out.

And I was like, oh, she doesn’t have a leg.

She has a fake leg or whatever.

And I’m like, oh, that’s Pat’s wife.

I was like, you go, get him.

Faith Talks host: Yeah, because you think there are a number of people that believe that when something really bad happens, you have the right to pelt and just sulk the rest of your life.

And that’s what Satan wants us to do.

Faith Talks host: And your husband was telling me you hiked, how many miles was it? 6.8 or something?

Faith Talks host: Yeah, it was over 6.5.

So it was probably 618 with an elevation change of over 1,200 feet.

Faith Talks host: That is crazy.

And even just like hearing more of how the leg actually works.

You know how you’ve got to like push up to get it to lock so it doesn’t, you know, just collapse underneath you.

It’s a whole, I guess I hadn’t really thought about it too much before.

But when you see it in action, you’re like, wow, that actually does.

Yes.

You don’t have a knee.

It really does a lot, you know.

Faith Talks host: I do miss, I will have to say, the missing the knee is obviously a big thing. but it has taken a lot of patience to learn to manipulate without that.

So in other words, what I’ve got in its place is never even close to what, even with the mechanics, the bionics they have now, they can’t come close to making what God created.

But I do have to be thankful for what I do have, though.

I won’t go there.

Faith Talks host: so um i i know you had mentioned about the accepting help from people and just maybe we’ll touch on one just this last thing before we finish here but just do you struggle accepting help from

Faith Talks host: people just being in that state of need um yes uh i have a very hard time i i think because and some of it’s pride i’ll be actually probably a lot of it’s pride because i want to be able to do it.

I want to be able to do these things.

I don’t need someone else’s help.

You know, I’ve gotten really good with crutches over all these years.

I can have two crutches under my, you know, one under each arm and not use my hands on the crutches at all.

And get, like, if I can carry a bowl of cereal in one hand and the milk carton in the other hand and still get those crutches to go forward.

So I don’t need anyone, but that’s not really true.

You know, we all, you know, but to swallow the pride and say, yes, will you carry this in for me?

Faith Talks host: God’s, you know, showed you humility just even through physically not being able to do things and needing help from others, and then ultimately, like, we need help from the Lord because we are so weak.

Right, right.

Well, thank you so much for coming in today. and that was really a huge blessing.

I’ve actually been talking to Mrs.

Biggs throughout the week.

So I’ve been blessed all week.

So I’m so glad that you were able to just share it to the listeners.

And I just think as we close here, thinking about what this is, this is Faith Talks, and having meekness is really an issue of faith.

I think, again, if you could write everything in your life into two categories, the good things and the bad things, and then ask God, okay, what were the good things and the bad things in my life that you put in there?

I think our lists would look different.

You know, maybe some things we had on our bad list would be some things that God had in his good list, just that he’s going to work together those trials to be the greatest blessings in our life.

But that really is just a matter of faith, realizing, okay, I can’t see it right now that it’s good.

Right now I see bad, but I’m just going to trust that God is big enough that he can work it together for good.

So remember, listeners, as you live your lives this week, Just choose meekness and realize that faith doesn’t just talk, but faith walks.

Faith Talks host: Even with a prosthesis.

Faith Talks host: Yes.

Guest: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Thee Generation Podcast.

If you’ve been blessed or helped in any way by this episode or any other episodes, please consider sharing what God has done in your life.

Your testimony could be exactly what someone else needs to take their own step out of the boat.