the wilderness

Have you spent much time thinking about Joseph’s life?  You know the coat of many colors Joseph who’s story is found in the book of Genesis.  What part of his story comes to mind most vividly?  Do you think first about his reign in Egypt, or how he saved so many people from certain death during the famine, or maybe it is the intense reunion with his brothers that is your favorite part of the drama.  All of those things to me define Joseph’s life.  There is another part of his life though, that amidst all the glory we often over look.  Have you ever pondered those seven years Joseph spent in prison?  It is easy to not look at that too closely.  Maybe it just doesn’t sound too bad to us after all he was well liked there and even got put in charge of the other prisoners.  Honestly though would any of us like to spend seven years in prison under any conditions?  Put yourself in Joseph’s shoes.  The only ‘crime’ he had committed was to say no to sin now here he is stuck in prison who knows for how long of a stay.  Don’t you think he must have wondered at least once what God was doing?  Do you think he ever doubted the goodness of God’s plan for his life as year after year went by?  Do you think he ever questioned if there even was a plan?   So much of what we know of Joseph’s life is thrilling, triumphant, dramatic - obviously God ordained.  But this?  I mean why?  What was God up to during those seven long years?  What was the plan?  Was He just storing Joseph in a safe place “I’ll be back when I need you just sit tight in the mean time”  I don’t think so!  So what…

Then there is Moses.  What do we think about when pondering his life?  Bulrushes, parting the red sea, manna, 40 years in the desert leading the Israelites…of course.  But what about that part where he flees from Pharaoh and ends up spending a long time sheep herding in the wilderness.  Sure great things were coming but Moses didn’t know that!  Do you suppose he ever thought that God had abandoned Him? Or at least that there must no be much of a plan for his life?  Anyway if Moses did not wonder I sure do!  What was God doing?  What good thing was buried in those many seemingly empty, unprofitable years?

Well truthfully I don’t know.  I could venture a few guesses I suppose but that is all they would be, guesses, as easily wrong as right.  What we can be confident about is that God was indeed doing something.  Very probably that something was very important, iatrical in fact for, the later astonishing parts of these two men’s ministry.  I also know that God tends to use similar tactics.  You can search the rest of the Bible and find lots of other people who went through desert times.  Why? because God got messed up on the time scale “oops you were born too soon, I won’t need you for another twenty years, so just stay put ’til I’m ready”?  Because God only had plans for a portion of their life and the rest, well, just wasn’t important? No! No! No!  Heaven forbid we should paint such a degrading picture of our amazing God out of our own frustration.  If this is how we feel we don’t need a better plan for our life we need a more accurate view of God. 

“Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began.” Psalm 139:16

Not a few of my days - not some of your days - ALL  Yes, even these wilderness days you are wandering in now.

“The Lord’s burning anger will not turn back until He has completely fulfilled the purposes of His heart.  In time to come you will understand it.” Jeremiah 30:24                  

In time to come…but we don’t want that do we?  We want to know now.  Waiting, well, it’s not our strong point and what’s more we have trust issues.  Take heart my fellow sufferers!  No matter what your emotions may scream at you, you can be sure your wilderness is not empty.  On the contrary it is a good indication that God has some amazing things in store for you.  Are you ready?  

Every time another saint becomes ill Job popularity stats must rise.  In the record of his’ life we get an inside peak at heaven’s perspective on an earthly trial.  Poor Job hasn’t a clue why all of these horrible things are happening to him, but God does.  So does Satan for that matter.  The heavenly hosts are watching, how will Job respond.  Well at first Job is patient and chooses to trust His creator but eventually discouragement sets in.  Listen to what Job says.

“As God lives, who has deprived me of justice, and the Almighty who has made my life bitter,”  (Job 27:2)  “If only I could be as in months gone by,  in the days when God watched over me, when His lamp shone above my head,…when God’s friendship rested on my tent.” (Job29:2-4)  

Sound familiar anyone?  Is there any of us who has not cried something similar. Does God just take this accusation from Job.  Does He agree through silence that He has indeed abandoned Job and deprived this his servant of justice.  I don’t think so! 

“Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind;  Get ready to answer Me like a man;…Would you really challenge My justice?…”     Job 40:7-8

How foolish to challenge God and His plans, to conclude in our ignorance that He has forgotten us or made a mistake.  The book of Job shows us that there is so much of the picture we can not see.
Job response to God is “…Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”  Job 42:3

I know it is easy to do - but just don’t doubt God in your wilderness.  Surround yourself with the truth.  Read the lives of great men and women who have gone before us.  Recognize their wildernesses.  Search for the plan.  Rejoice when God moves them on.  Then trust their God, who is your God, to do the same for you. 

not far

Chronic illness drains us.  It touches every area of life; physical, mental, emotional, relational…  But I think the place we are last to recognize it’s damage is in our spiritual life.  Sometimes we have moments of inspiration, flashes of revelation in our sickness, however often God begins to feel very far away.  And that hurts.  Here we are at a time in our life where we need Him desperately - but we can not feel Him.  If there was ever a time we wished for God to be visible it is now.  We want to see His face, hear his voice, and feel His arms around us.  Instead we are in a fog, a desert place, alone.  Or so it seems

I came across a verse one morning that changed my view of our ’invisible’ God.  In Acts the Bible describes Paul’s visit to Athens and his preaching of the gospel at Areopagus.  Look at what he tells them about God.  “From one man He has made every nation of men to live all over the earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live, so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:26-27)  Did you hear that beautiful promise from God’s word?  He - the God of creation, so loves us with an everlasting love - is not, is never, far from each one of us.  And the Holy Spirit uses very human, very close words here,  ‘reach out’.  Think about it.  No matter where you are at this moment sitting in your chair, staring at this computer screen God is right there.  He is so close you can reach out and ‘touch’ Him.  God does not play peek-abo with us from heaven.  He does not come by once a month to make a house call.  No matter how you may feel He is always, always near.  God is closer than any person you can touch, more real than anything you can see.  Isn’t that amazingly comforting?!  Listen as Paul goes on.

“For in Him we live and move and exist,…” Acts 17:28

Wow! If only we could grasp this what a difference it would make in our lives!  Truly we can grasp it but it takes time, effort, and the work of the Holy Spirit.  A good place to begin is by asking God for a greater awareness of His presence every day.  Just because we do not recognize God around us does not mean we can not and truly He desires even more than we do for us to know that He is there.  We would also do well to remind ourselves of God’s nearness throughout the day.  It is necessary to fight this lie of the devil, that God is far away from us in our trial, with the truth.  Lies do not die easily but the truth is far stronger.  During this weak time in your faith allow the truth and God to fight for you.  If all you can do is repeat to yourself “He is not far!” do not worry.  It is enough for now.  

last hope?

Every search for health has periods of waiting and very often some of those waiting periods bring you face to face with a brick wall.  I was in one of those times and beginning to feel a little desperate.  During all my other waiting periods up to this point things had still been happening, just slowly.  Wheels were turning, behind the scene stuff was getting done, but now the ball was in our court and we seemed to have no where to send it.

Then God moved through another member of the body of Christ.  A doctor made an exception for me and I had an appointment with a specialist.  Sitting there hearing the news I wanted to cry.  A month seemed an eternity to wait but finally we could once again see ahead of us.

Maybe it was the long wait, maybe it was the fact that this doctor specialized in problems like mine, but for whatever reason I started hanging a lot on this appointment.  “If anyone could help me this doctor can” I thought “and if no one can help me…well we won’t go there.”  What I was doing did not dawn on me however until I was sitting there one day and thought to myself “this doctor is my last hope”  All of a sudden my internal radar went off.  “Wait a minute Rachel what did you just say?!  This person is your last hope??  Since when do you place your hope in people anyway?  And last hope - please!  No human being should ever be your last hope.  Who are you trusting anyway?  Can this doctor heal you?  Or if he has no options do you think God has run out of options too?  Where are you putting God in your life anyway?”  It was a little shocking to realize where I had wandered to, but it is easy to do isn’t it?

We spend so much time going to doctors, asking questions of medical people, taking the advice of specialists, that we sometimes forget - not only are they very human and fallible, they also can not heal us.  Only God can do that.  Desperation in our journey towards health comes when we leave God out of the picture and start trusting solely in man’s devises.  Take heart God is able to heal with a doctor or with out, using medicine, using food, or using only His holy Spirit.  No person on earth is ever your last hope.  God is your last hope and with Him who needs any other?

It was a good thing God called me on my wrong thinking because this doctor visit ended up being a flop.  As disheartening as that was though I came out of there knowing that even if the doctor did not know what was wrong with me God does and He does not need a person to bring me back to health.

Make sure you are looking beyond the people in your life to God Almighty in your illness.  Let Him be your hope because only He will never disappoint.      

“Why am I so depressed?  Why this turmoil within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, My Savior and my God”    Psalm 42:11

“…I will put my hope in Your name for it is good.”    Psalm 52:9

jealousy

         “Why do I get to be stuck here in illness while all of my friends move on with life?"    

     “Why do I get such a lions share of trials when so and so’s life goes along like a song?”

“Doesn’t God have anything for me to do?”

 “Couldn’t He give me that kind of miracle?”


Okay so I’ve been doing a little procrastinating on this one.  It’s not the most pleasant topic in the world after all and then the truth is I personally have far from mastered the right thoughts and attitudes. Still, ugly as it may be jealousy is an important topic related to illness and so I need to address it, both on this blog and in my own heart.

Jealousy: it is one of those sins that creeps up on you.  There you are seemingly minding your own business and then all of a sudden it jumps out and shouts boo!  Startled you turn to see it’s ugly face leering at you.  “Go away!” you exclaim but it only laughs, because it knows what you don’t - that you are the one who sent the invitation.

Jealousy appears to materialize out of nothing but I think we all know sin better than to believe that.  Yes, sometimes those ugly little thoughts pop up with no specific forethought in that direction but there IS a prelude to jealousy and it is called ‘me-focus’.  Stop and think about it.  If our hearts and minds were directed completely upward and outward jealousy would have no power over us.  We would have no time to feel sorry for ourselves or listen to whiny thoughts about why she gets that and I get this because we would be too busy trusting God and rejoicing over others gifts.  Me-focus is a hard thing and something I will probably talk about in a later blog post.  For now just take some time to soak in this idea of a link between self-centeredness and jealousy.  Sometimes we have such a hard time shaking jealousy off our trail because we spend all our effort in plugging our ears and never look behind his lies to see that we are guilty of placing ourselves at the center of our life. 

Another step in the spiritual war against jealousy comes when we realize that every jealous thought is a declaration that God is not good.  Analyze some of your most prevalent jealousies and I think you will see it.  It in essence says “God, what you have given me is not good enough, it is not fair, or kind, or loving - I need something more”.  All through the Bible however we are told that not only does God give us everything we need He is Love and Goodness and Justice.  When we see our sin in this light we have two options; continue living out blasphemy against God, or reject those thoughts and feelings on this holy ground - I KNOW that my God is love. 

When I first noticed this sin’s hold in my life I began to come across scriptures about jealousy and the truth gave me a greater hate for my sin and helped me stay earnest and real in my fight against it.  I want to share some of those verses with you now.  

“…For love is as strong as death, Jealousy as cruel as the grave;…”          Song of Solomon 8:6  

“A tranquil heart is life to the body, but jealousy is rottenness to the bones."   Proverbs 14:30  

“Fury is cruel, and anger is a flood but who can withstand jealousy?" Proverbs  27;4  


Knowing my own heart these verses stung and helped me stay serious in my resisting this sin and my prayers to God against it. We truly do need God’s help when it comes to Jealousy.  It is a fast growing weed and sends down deep and spiraling roots into our hearts.  Thanks be to God!  He is able to cleanse us and free us from its clutches.

This has been a pretty straight forward and blunt post thus far.  I have written this way both because of my awareness of my own personal need for truth in this area and also because of the very severe way God speaks about jealousy in His word.  However I can not end this post with out a small shift in direction.

You see I do know how hard it is to be left behind.  To have to sit on the road of life and watch everyone else run past you on to greater and more glorious things, disappearing in a cloud of dust. Dust tastes bitter on the detours of life.  I know the pain of being jealous because my hands are now too weak to give and minister and love.  Wanting to serve here and there but knowing it must wait indefinitely.  There is a deep pain in being forced to lay aside all hopes and dreams and to be left with a seemingly blank future. Feeling your own undesireableness because of your physical weakness.  Yes I know and I am not the only one who knows.  God knows.  He does not know in an impersonal way.  Our Father does not just look down from heaven and ’know’ our thoughts.  He abides in us, He walks beside us, and He loves us with an everlasting love.  Just like a mother’s heart aches when her children are hurt so God's heart also aches for you.  Your pain hurts Him, your grief moves Him, your tears find Him.  In anger you may then cry out “if that is true then why doesn’t He take the reason for my pain away?”.  The best answer I have for that is summed up in these words I once heard.  ‘If I had the power of God I would change my circumstances.  If I had the wisdom of God I wouldn’t’  Don’t be afraid to tell God what you wish you had, humbly and with tears. He knows that we are but dust and He will never despise a broken spirit.  Let Him help you as you struggle with this sin.  Revel and rest in His enormous compassion.  Never forget that He cares about your tears - not because they are all shed for righteous reasons- but because He loves you.

“You Yourself have recorded my wandering.  Put my tears in Your bottle.  Are they not in Your records?”  Psalm 56:8

“When the Lord saw her He had compassion on her and said, ‘Don’t cry.’  Luke 7:13

“…I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”   Ephesians 3:17-19

don't heal me...yet

"Don’t heal me …yet" I found myself whispering in the quiet stillness of my
thoughts. The irony of what I was praying hit me.  What a bizarre thing to even
think let alone pray.  After several months of this illness I had had more than
enough physically.  I certainly was not interested in an extended period of pain or
weakness or limitations. Yet here I found myself talking to God and saying to Him
the opposite of what I had been saying for the last several months. Asking for
what made the least sense, and meaning it.

Why?  How could I really want that? Well I had come to a deep understanding in
those many weeks of just how much this time of pain was worth. I had begun to
see God working in my life through this trial and it was getting a bit exciting. I had
experienced small changes already; a difference in the way I saw things, adjustments in my thinking, and greater understanding of what is really important, a little less
self focus, but we had only scratched the surface! I felt these lessons needed so
much more time to sink in to really transform me and I saw the potential for so
much more goodness in this valley. I was afraid lest I suddenly get better before I
had gotten all God had for me out of this time. Afraid of this trial being short
enough that the lessons I had encountered would only be skin deep and quickly
fade in the sunshine of healing. I was afraid of exiting this illness the same person
who began it.

I laugh now over my fears of my health returning too quickly as many months
later there is still no end in sight.  I need not have worried. Still even as I write
unsettledness comes over me due in part to this same fear. I still do not want to
leave this illness unchanged. I still worry that I may in good health soon forget
what it is like to be ill, loose some of my empathy, become more hard hearted,
forget my lessons. Do I still pray that God won’t heal me yet? No…no.  I purpose
to seek Him more in this time, ask Him to not let me miss anything, pray that I will
retain all He has shown me, but then I chose to rest in Him.  If there is one thing
I’ve learned through life experiences about God it is that He always puts me in the
right place at the right time with the right lessons and the perfect revelations - as
I’m seeking Him and often even when I’m not.  He is just like that.  When I follow
Him He’s faithful, when I wander He sends me a booming thunderclap, just loud
enough to send me scurrying back into His outstretched arms like a small
frightened child.  I am not able to change on my own. I am not able to ensure I
stay changed.  I am certainly not able to heal myself or keep myself ill so really I
have no alternative but to trust Him, that or worry. The good thing is I not only
have to trust Him I can trust Him. Sometimes we put a little too much emphasize
on our own roll in our lives and not enough on His. Trust Him for the perfect
length in your illness and trust Him also to help you with your spiritual lessons.
God is in the business of transforming His children into His likeness and He is
more than able to achieve it!

“I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 1:6

counting the little things

I keep a notebook where I write down God’s gifts to me.  Sometimes they are little things, a rainbow tucked in the clouds, a letter in the mail, or a much needed cup of tea.  Other times my gifts are on a much deeper level, a doctor visit, a friendship restored, or the opening of my eyes to a part of God’s character I had never seen before.

I can not tell you how beautiful my life looks through the lenses of these recorded gifts.  The notebook is really my history over the past year or so and how much I love my life after reading just a little bit of it.  How much I love God.  It’s funny, I know that some of the portions in this book were written through very tough times.  There is a hint of that bitter sweetness in the pages, but the joy there by far out weighs it.  I promise, by far.  It is so interesting to see how the pain has faded and no longer stings but the joy, ah it remains as fresh and radiant as when the ink was still wet on the paper.  

Often when we are ill the world looks very bleak and our lives brim over with dryness and pain.  There is nothing cheerful to write to those friends who urge us in their emails to tell them about ourselves.  There is nothing hopeful to report to our family when they call.  It is hard some days to see God’s many gifts to us because we remember too keenly the ones He has allowed to depart from us for a time.  No matter how hard it is though we must look and search for the gifts anyway for who can live with out joy and hope?  and that is truly what this cultivates in our hearts.  No matter how many bad things are in our lives I assure you there are beautiful things to be found too.

There is always something to rejoice over, even if it seems a bitter thing to be glad about.  I have found myself truly grateful for the most unusual things while in this valley of mine.  Thankful for almost passing out one time, excited about a doctor visit, glad to have my blood drawn, so grateful as a new symptom sets in that it has not plagued me before now.  Does this seem to good and syrupy to be true?  finding God’s gifts among ‘bad’ things.  I must admit I am the most amazed of anyone, because I have not forced myself or just pretended to be grateful for these things, I truly am!  God has truly made me glad, and what a deep and abiding gladness there is when we recognize His very vigilant care for us.

How many times a day does God whisper ‘I love you’ to us?  How many of those times do we not even hear?  How sad to miss even one of those precious gifts, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.  So my challenge to you? Start listening and start recording.  I think you will be amazed as I have been, once you purposefully open your eyes, at how very much God is giving you every single day.  Yes, even through the pain, yes, even through the tears.  That’s what is so great about God’s love - not even our earthly trials can dim or cheapen in.  They only bring it into focus    

hearing hearts

One of the most precious things about this illness has been the opportunity to hear people pray for me.  In the face of real problems and pain the masks come off.  No more trite words and glib phrases.  Prayers become distinct, one of a kind, obviously offered for me from someone who knows me and who also knows pain.  People who you never guessed cared imploring God on your behalf.  Friends -you never knew how deep their burden for you is- lifting your distress up to God.  Their hearts bleed for you and you get to listen in.  You are awed and overwhelmed and incredibly blessed by their love for you.

Just hearing their prayers brings a healing all of its’ own, and I have to cry.  Sometimes I am on the other end of the phone and so they never know that what they just asked God to give me is exactly what I’ve been needing and fighting against all this time.  Sometimes we are across the room from one another and when they finish my ‘tissue hunt’ begins and so they know.  I use to abhor crying in front of people, now I’ve decided I really don’t need to hide so much.  Sure you have to make yourself vulnerable to honestly confess your needs to someone or to really pray for someone but what do we gain by resisting this command of God?  More importantly what do we loose?  There is a fellowship in praying with someone, for someone, in finding out how much they hold in their heart for you.  As we close our time together my heart is blessed beyond measure. And then I have to wonder …why did we wait so long?

limitations - chains - lines

‘The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
                          Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.’  Psalm 16:6

Illness brings with it restrictions, limitations, chains, bars, lines.  We hate those lines and we fight against them.  How hard, how very hard it seems to us to be denied this or that.  To have our life stay seemingly in the same place.  To feel we are reduced to little more than a spectator.

‘The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places‘.  -the lines-  The focus here is obviously what these line include but lines of necessity exclude as well.  I had not seen that before.  Every one has lines whether broad or narrow and everyone has something on the other side of his boundary that he would honestly like to have included in his inheritance.  Even the psalmist.  But he refuses to look at what has been denied him and instead looks at what he has been given and declares ‘my heritage is beautiful’.  

Do you call your lot beautiful?  

Now we could assume that the beauty of his inheritance comes from the good things encompassed in the lines.  Perhaps he is looking at some wealth, power, relationship, and exclaiming "life certainly is good" , but I rather doubt it.  Look at the verse that comes directly before this one.  ‘Lord, You are my portion and my cup of blessing; You hold my future.’ Psalm 16:5   It is not the physical blessings that the psalmist rejoices over it is the extraordinary truth that God is his portion.  Who could ask for anything more?

But there is more.  God Almighty who is love, and justice, and truth, who knows the future, who hold his future, has laid down the lines.  What a difference that makes!  Our boundaries do not come from a evil being who is out to destroy us but rather from our heavenly Father whose goal is to transform us into the image of His son Jesus.  

‘Therefore my heart is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also rests securely.’ Psalm 16:9

The next time you are tempted to despise your restrictions or be angry at your boundaries remember that they are no accident.  It is not a lie or denial to call our heritage beautiful because, as it comes from God, it truly is!                

moment by moment

Before I became sick I had not experienced a lot of times where I needed God, or
more truthfully, where I knew I needed God. I need Him all the time every
moment of every day - for that matter every moment at night as well.  However it is
far too easy to forget that. Yes, it is easy to just rush along going from one thing
to the next throwing a prayer heavenward every once in a while like a flare, plowing
through our Bible reading but really living about 99% of our day without a thought
for God. Trials change that. Suddenly we know we need God in a very real very
painful way. Our need presses down on us, consumes us, keeps us constantly on
our knees before Him with an ever present prayer on our lips ‘God I need you for
this’. Our need is no longer just emotional and spiritual it is physical, tangible,
glaringly obvious every moment.

Illness makes even a simple life overwhelming. We only have the physical energy
for this moment, and that just barely. There is nothing extra left for the next
moment. Our reserve is empty. That is scary. How will we live? we wonder. How
will we do the things we are suppose to do? How will we function just on a basic
minimal level? It is very different to have to trust God with the future when that
future is our next second rather than ten years down the road.

So we wake up in the morning – exhausted- and find we need His strength to
force ourselves out of bed. Breakfast is put before us and for some reason we
need to borrow His power to eat. It hurts to sit, we need Him. We have to walk,
we need Him. Being with people - we haven’t the emotional stamina, again we
need Him. Stillness becomes unbearable, again we need Him. Working our job it
seems impossible to make it through, again we need Him, and again as always He
is there for us. Moment by moment; trust, dependence, connected always to
God’s never ending power, having to be supported each moment by His endless
supply of grace.

Nothing teaches you to live in the moment like illness does; because that is all you
have the strength for, this moment. We have to just take this second as it comes
and let God worry about the next one. Because He promises to be there in that
next moment ready to hand us the strength that we need. We would much
rather hoard our strength like money, food, and friends. We would like to have
an abundance of it, enough for today tomorrow and plenty of emergencies in
between. We feel safe then, confident, and maybe even a little invincible. But if
our life is always like that we may never learn the joy of truly relying on God for
our needs. We may never personally learn how faithful, strong, and kind He is.
Now that would be a true tragedy.

Yes, in ways it is much more ‘pleasant’ to trust God when our storehouse is full
rather than empty, but we miss something greater if that is the only kind of trust
we ever experience. There is nothing like seeing God come through for us and
personally discovering that His strength which He freely gives us never ever runs
out.

 Once we give up the fight there is an unbelievable sweetness to resting in Christ
from moment to moment to moment. It is unbelievably secure to just admit we
cannot do it and let go trusting Him physically, emotionally, spiritually. How
amazing to let Him run your life! I’m not sorry God brought me to such a low
place, I am not sorry I ran out of my own strength because if I had not I might
never have tasted His.

left; part two

Of course there is another side to that coin of being left and I would not be doing it justice or you much good if I neglected it…so here goes part two.

I am afraid that being ill sometimes makes us more sensitive.  The days are long and we are weak and in need of a lot of strength.  It is easy in this compromised state to put too much of a burden on our friends.  We must be careful to not do this as it causes us to become bitter and can destroy a wonderful friendship.

So first off - give people a break!  You don’t know what may be going through their heads.  Maybe there is someone else who is hurting and they are spending time ministering to them.  Perhaps you look outwardly okay to them and they have no idea what you are feeling.  They could think you want to be alone…well don’t you sometimes?  There are a lot of perfectly good reasons the people around you or the people you care about may not be meeting your needs even if they truly want to.  The truth is they are imperfect just like you.  So just let go of your expectations and don’t hold it against them!

Expanding on that imperfect idea it may be helpful to remember back to some of your own shortcomings in this area.  I think if we are honest we have all neglected a good friend a time or two in favor of a good time.  Sad but true.  That does not mean it is easy when we end up on the other end but it does mean that we should have grace and forgiveness for others.  Also once we have been ill for a while and hopefully developed a heightened since of empathy and awareness of other ill people’s feeling it can be easy to think we are perfect in this area.  ‘I would just pick up the phone and call if I had a friend who was sick’  ‘There’s no way you would catch me running off with everyone else and leaving myself…I mean my friend here by herself’  Oh really?  The truth is we have before!  Maybe not in those exact circumstances but many times and in many ways we have failed our friends. 

So if this is a place where you are struggling stop and release it.  Allow love to cover your hurt.  Remember that your friends are not perfect and neither are you!  Forgive them when they fail you with the same abundance of love that God has so very often shown to you.  Then move on to other places.  If you can not find your way out of your hurt then ask the good Shepherd to lead you.  He knows the way   

left

You are with a group of friends having a great time, laughing, fellowshipping, how good it is to just be together.  Then a few girls decide to trek down to the creek and cool off in the water.  Your heart sinks and your mouth grows a little dry.  You know your legs will never carry you so far.  It is a good idea.  It is a scorching day.  Soon everyone is gone, except for you.  You are left, forgotten, how could they understand, those who have never known ill health, what it is to not be able to follow?

After church on Wednesday evening everyone gathers to talk, everyone that is except you.  Your back is aching so badly it is all you can do to sit there in your seat very still.  Going to join one of the groups, those standing groups, is so beyond your reach.  So you sit.  You don’t even have the energy to try and look cheerful.  The pain steals your smile and you are left alone and hurting in more places than just your back.  Still you want to move, to go be part of all that is happening, but you can’t.  They must all think you’re stuck up, that you want to sit here by yourself.  How could you ever explain it?  But then no one is stopping long enough to listen anyway.

So when you are ill you get left behind.  It comes with the territory as painful as that may be.  There are just some things you can no longer do and so you have to stay put when everyone is walking, sit down when everyone is standing up and sleep when everyone else is talking their hearts out into the night.  Illness is an isolater.  It is easier to accept your own limitations though when people around you recognize them and so do their best to help ease you though the hardness of being left.  However, sometimes they don’t.  So how do we respond?  What do we do with the emotions and struggles that being left behind brings.  It is a journey like everything else about illness and so something that we will not learn in a day.  The best comfort I can think of as I write is found in Mark 14:50 speaking of Jesus’ arrest the Bible tells us “Then they all deserted Him and ran away.”  Oh how much deeper those words sink into our hearts now!  It was easy before to just pass over them, to forget that our Savior had emotions too.  What must it have been like to be abandoned at such a hour to have to face such a time alone??  Oh yes, my dear sisters our Jesus knows, and He does not just know objectively.  He can emphasis with us on this level also because He was left too.  How much more precious to us does our Savior become with such a revelation!  And more that that, He is One who will never ever leave us.  So the next time others forget you, talk to Him, lean on Him.  He will always be there for you.  

I am convinced that God allows these hard things, these valleys, this dark, to bring us closer to Himself.  As precious as the gift of friendship among mortals is how much greater to have true deep fellowship with our Savior.  How much better to learn more of Him.  Even though it might sometimes seem more pleasant to our sinful selves to be able to go through life never having a friend let us down it would be far worse to have that fleeting pleasure and so never turn and lean on Him.  Yes, it hurts to be left but He is willing for us to be hurt that we may gain what will serve us much better than earthly companions ever could - a greater closeness to Him      

better broken

I remember asking God for healing one day when I had a strange thought invade.  At that still early date I had seen God working in my life through my illness and I was catching a vision of all He could do through me in this time.  I began to wonder if I could really even ask Him for healing when I knew that He would probably receive more glory from this brokenness of mine.  Think about it, who has motivated you the most in your walk with Jesus?  Who’s life has taught you the most about God?  Who is your favorite person in the Bible and why?  Which of the testimonies you have heard sticks with you to this day a continued source of encouragement?  


Is it not the people who have gone through the most who most inspire us?  Don’t we take comfort in knowing someone who has gone through a lot sustained by God’s grace?  For that matter have we forgotten that the world is watching and our testimony to them is made more effective by our faithfulness in trials?     

Perhaps it is not the most comforting thought you will ever find on this blog, I can’t say I was enamored with it at first myself, but the truth there kept drawing me.  What if I am better broken?  What if in the yuck of here and now is the best place I can serve Him?  If I can be a powerful broken vessel for Him do I truly want… should I really be begging for healing?

It would be easy to get trapped in the pit of ’oh great! I get to be stuck here forever’ but that is not the case at all.  One day it will probably bring God glory to heal us, and so He will.  No need to fear the future because we think we have figured out God’s plan.  We already know His ways are unsearchable.  But if that is not the case, if for the rest of our lives we will be better broken when it comes to His glory than we can rest in knowing that we are fulfilling our calling in Him.

Now I still ask God to heal me, but I only want healing if that is what’s best.  I ask for physical wholeness thinking of all the ways I could better serve Him with good health, but then I also think of the ways I could not learn and serve then - and I am content to leave it in His hands.    


Truly there is peace in this thought if we can just accept it.  It releases us from emotionally fighting against our sickness.  There is serenity, harmony, calm, in being God’s broken vessel.  Knowing He has us here for a very good reason.  Trusting He is using this for His own glory and not just our growth.  It is really rather special to be chosen for such a mission don’t you think?  It may not always feel so but think of how much God must love us and trust us to give us such an assignment.  “my beloved, will you love me in your pain?  Will you trust me in you pain?  Will you chose joy in your pain?  Will you point others to Me as your strength in your pain?”
         

knowing

“Now this is what the Lord says- the One who created you Jacob, and the One who formed you, Israel- ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine.  I will be with you when you pass through the waters, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you.  You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you.’”   Isaiah 43:1-2  


God’s Word is one of the most valuable components to our growth in Christ.  Through it we know who God is, how He acts, and what His will is.  In it’s pages we read many precious promises for us and by it’s light we can rightly judge all other claims about life.  Still so often to us the Bible is God’s book and nothing more.  We read it, letting the words flow through our brain, accumulating facts, storing away the right words for some needed day, but never letting this life source touch our heart.  

I think that is part of why God allows trials.  To make His word vibrantly, intensely, real to us.  To make His power and promises real to us. To make Himself real to us.  There is something we acquire when we read that we call ‘believing’ but when it does not change the way we view the world we know that it has failed to penetrate our hearts.

Once this passage from Isaiah was not real to me.  I believed it with my head but I had shut my eyes to it’s personal meaning in my life.  I wanted to trust that the flame would not burn me but my faith was small and weak.  So what does God do with weak faith?  He sends it through the rivers and through the flame.  What we will not believe though we read it in His holy word He graciously forces us to experience in our life.

My river was a very frightening time at the beginning of this illness.  A time when I had to walk through the valley of the shadow so many ’what ifs’ and ’hows’ unanswered.  A chilling place.  When I was once on the other side of that valley I read this passage.  How many times had I read it before? but this time excitement and understanding flowed through me.  The light of  this passage shone on the previous week and I remembered my river and the lapping water, how it has risen higher and higher, so close to overwhelming me and yet somehow…somehow it never did.  And I saw, I knew, my trials had not flowed over me because my Heavenly Father had not let them.  He had been there all along, with me.  Giving me just the right grace just enough strength, forbidding the waters to rise any higher than I could bare.  Oh how precious my God became to me in that instant of knowing.  How calmly I could look forward into the black unknown that stretched before me having already tasted His faithful care of me.  

I never have to be afraid when I find myself passing through flame, or fear the rising waters again.  I am confident that whatever comes my way will never be too painful or sad for me to bear.  I know that those waters will never overwhelm me.  And oh how precious it is to know.