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.