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My earliest memory is standing in a crib looking out the corner window of the fourth floor and seeing my parents walking across the hospital parking lot. It was 1953, I was 19 months old and like many children and adults that year, I had contracted polio. The doctors placed me in an isolation ward and everyday for six weeks my parents drove 60 miles each way just for the opportunity to peer through a one-way mirror at their oldest son whose fate they could not know. I could not see my mom or dad, I could not touch or hold them, I was a small child separated from my parents by a dreaded disease. For years, I could only imagine the pain that separation must have caused them. The day I saw my mom and dad crossing that parking lot, the day the separation ended and I was reunited with them, has forever been imprinted on my heart and etched in my memory.

My father was a good and gentle man who loved God and the Church. He was an elder at the Thomas Street Church in Altus, Oklahoma, a good husband and a great father. He had so much to give but on a Sunday afternoon in November of 1973, he suffered a massive coronary and died at the age of 52. As a young man, 21 years old, I was again separated from my father, this time by a disease of the heart.

In September 1983, a precious daughter was born to Ramona and I. She was born with multiple congenital anomalies. For almost two and one half years she fought to live and taught us to live, but on New Year’s Day 1986, Ramona and I held tiny Amanda as her heart slowed and eventually stopped. She died because her tiny heart had been damaged by a massive coronary suffered two days earlier. The separation from my father had been excruciating and now I was separated from our daughter – separated by a congenital heart defect. No pain is comparable to the loss of a child.

In July 1997 our family was traveling through middle Florida when an unknown motorist ran us off the road.  Our vehicle rolled over four times crushing the passenger side roof of our SUV, and we landed in a canal outside Cocoa Beach, Florida. Ramona was taken by helicopter to the Orlando trauma center; she had suffered an injury to her spinal cord between the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae. She spent four and one half months in the hospital, fighting for her life, learning the physical, emotional and intellectual obstacles a quadriplegic must face daily. There is a certain isolation, a certain separation that only those living with spinal cord injury can understand.

Four tragedies… no four triumphs! 

Just as a disease, polio, separated me for a while from my mother and father, I know that that terrible 'disease,' sin, separates us from our Father and our family in heaven. But the joy and triumph of reunification so indelibly etched in my memory are only a shadow of the joy and triumph experienced when our sins are washed away and we are reconciled to our Father. 

The separation from my father in his passing reminds me of the temporary nature of this life. There is a triumphant day coming when there will be no more tears, no more pain and no more separation, and we will live with him together forever.

The death of Amanda taught me, in my own small way, how God must feel when one of his children is lost. It taught me how urgent and important the good news of Jesus Christ is. In a small way, Amanda’s passing taught me the concept of preciousness — how precious we, his children, are to him and how separation must grieve our Father.

Ramona has taught me that we don’t have the right or the privilege, no matter what the circumstances are, to give up. Ramona is a sweet, quiet, gentle person, but she is incredibly strong. She has fought everyday since our accident to get stronger, to get better, to rebuild on whatever foundation exists. We are all handicapped in some way, we all face limitations, we all have obstacles, and we all have imperfect 'foundations.' Ramona can’t walk, she can’t roll over in bed by herself, she can’t get in and out of her wheelchair without help, she can’t pour a drink of water for herself… but her smile, her determination, her words of encouragement, her example and her faith impact and move people in an unimaginable way. Ramona, in her faith and through the grace of a loving Father, is turning tragedy into triumph.

When the waters of your life begin to roil, when you face trials, tribulations, troubles or tragedy or when there seems no way out, remember that God our Father can span every gulf, bridge every separation, turn every tragedy into triumph. No matter how tough the day seems remember, 'this is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.'

KENT COST is a member of the Chattahoochie Valley church, Columbus, Ga.