on avoiding shingles the second time around…
Ben went and had an MRI of his head last weekend. Frequent stabbing headaches with unexplained triggers will get you an easy pass to the big tube with the metal face mask and the jackhammer melody. It’s the first thing doctors do, my sister told me, to rule out any of the “big stuff”…tumors, aneurisms, and the like. More than likely, it would confirm that he needs to adjust his lifestyle. Less stress, more self care. More accurate eyeglasses prescription and less screen time.
But that night, as I started to drift off to sleep, my confidence faltered. What if there is something seriously wrong? What if we are at the beginning of something impossibly difficult? What if….? I couldn’t finish the thought before hot, silent tears started to drop on my pillow. I tried to stifle my sniffles, because I knew that any comfort from Ben would send me over the edge, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stop crying.
I slipped off to sleep, dreaming the elusive dreams of the exhausted, and spent the next several days thinking and praying. Wednesday we found out that the MRI came back normal. This was incredible news, even though our hunt for answers isn’t over yet. You can’t just say, “well…it’s nothing immediately life-threatening, so things will just be…better.” We have some more figuring out to do.
But what was more profound to me during those days when we were waiting for the results were the questions that kept running through my head. “Will I trust God to handle this?” “Will I face whatever comes with faith and courage?” “Will I be able to follow Job’s example of accepting what comes, and not blame God?”
Actually, it was less the questions than the answers. Last year, when my Mom was facing possible debilitating back surgery, I asked myself similar questions, and didn’t have very good answers. In fact, I ended up with shingles, partially because I let myself get run down with worry and stress. This time around, my answers were much different. I have spent a significant amount of time over the past year getting into the Word of God and really focusing on solidifying where my beliefs land.
What I believe? I believe God is a compassionate God, and that He has our best in mind. I also believe that sometimes bad things happen, and that while we can’t always comprehend the reason at the time, we can always trust that God’s story will be told through those challenges and that He will bless our trust and obedience.
Easy to say, hard to act on, right? Absolutely. And I totally understand that we sidestepped “the worst” last week. You might ask me how I would have responded if the results had been different. You might ask me how I would respond in five years if his headaches are still unexplained. My answer would be that I pray that I would continue to find that peace that comes from trust in an all-powerful and all-knowing God, and that I would continue to be compassionate and caring to a husband who is hurting.
I go back to a verse that I wrote about in an entirely different context a few days ago on Mom Colored Glasses. This is what I will spend my time meditating on. Truth…beauty…goodness…not paranoia…ugliness…or untruth…
the prayer of the inadequate…
It is easy to feel inadequate.
A kid, aching ankles from growing pains, and all I can do is say that I’m sorry and give her a capful of Tylenol.
A husband, head pounding from stress, and all I can do is bring a glass of water and close the shades.
A friend, heart breaking from loss and pain, and all I can do is try to murmur the right words and pray the right prayers.
A world, hungry and tired, lost and needing to be found, and whatever I do seems like not enough.
I feel so useless while the struggling world around me feels so irreparably broken. Disease, pain, hurt, discord, misunderstanding, heartache, and loss…
And so I pray the prayer of the small, the weak, and the inadequate.
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me.
Give me Eyes that turn away from myself and see the hurt around me.
Give me Willing Hands to serve without wanting anything in return.
Give me Words to speak for the mute and to speak Truth to the broken.
Give me a platform to stand on and to shout Your words without Fear.
Give me comfort so I can give comfort to others.
My meager offerings are but Loaves and Fish, Prayer and Compassion, but please take them, bless them, and turn them into sweet incense that fills the nostrils of God.
I may be inadequate, but let me not forget that there is nothing too small…nothing too insignificant…that doesn’t add to Your beautiful story of restoration. A simple prayer laid bare the floor of the Red Sea so the Israelites could cross unscathed. A simple prayer sent fire from heaven to consume Elijah’s parched offering. A simple prayer can soften hearts and transform lives.
Comfort spills…and Gratitude fills…
Suffering has been on my mind lately. I have been studying Job, the ultimate example of suffering, while my prayer list is filled with people going through impossible situations. Their pain rests heavy on my soul, but at the same time, I am reminded of two things that I have been learning.
Comfort spills.
I heard this phrase in a sermon earlier this year, and it keeps popping into my head. It is our job…my job…to comfort others, to be the face and words of Jesus to a damaged world. We have been comforted so that we can comfort those around us. My guilt tries to derail it, one sharp jab at a time, telling me that I don’t have anything to offer, that I have no right to be privy to their hurt when I can’t begin to understand it. But at the same time, I also feel like my relationship with God is more solid than it has been in a long time. Maturing. Deepening. Isn’t that where comfort comes from? Having faith embedded into the core of your being so that when you open your mouth, Truth spills out?
I know that I can trust God and I know that He has His best in mind, because He has done it before and will do it again. And if that means shifting from the receiver of comfort to giver, even though it’s a role I don’t quite feel comfortable in yet, that’s what I need to do…that’s what we need to do. We are to open ourselves so that God can work through us, not because of us.
Gratitude fills.
The second thought that has been on my mind is that even in the darkest place, there is hope that springs from gratitude. At the very middle of my beliefs about God, I have a profound gratitude for my salvation that gives me not a temporal, but an eternal hope. That’s where everything begins. But where it becomes real is in the struggle, in the countless examples where the fragility of our lives are held together only through the strength of God working through us and our impossible situations. Humanity has limits, but with God’s hope at our core, we can endure so much more. I think of Corrie Ten Boom giving thanks for the lice who kept the guards out of the barracks, so they could worship God. I think of Job, with everything stripped away, still not giving up hope. But more importantly, I think of friends and acquaintances who have stared down disease, loss, and heartache and refused to give up hope. They found ways to be thankful in the middle of the hurricane, shining God’s Truth out of every pore.
I know these to be true. I have seen and heard and experienced them in my life. I have felt God’s comfort and the challenge to show it to others. I have felt the swelling of hope that comes from being grateful. Many of us may never have that one deep sorrow that threatens to drown us, but many more of us will. Will we decide to find ways to be thankful, even in the midst of trouble? Will we take the opportunities to look outside of ourselves and comfort others?
One of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 4:7-10: “But we have this treasures in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but no crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” I have always loved this verse, but it has taken on more meaning than ever. Accepting our fragility, and allowing God to do His work through us…spilling comfort and being filled with gratitude.
February Roundup: Oleander Girl, Boom Chicka Pop, and Vine…
Inspired by Mama Kat and MomPulse, I am back to do my February roundup of my new and rediscovered finds from this month!
Enjoy…
Link to video.
on The Easter Egg…
Recently, I pulled a few books off our shelf to review on Mom Colored Glasses, and of course, it meant that those books made it into the bedtime reading rotation. One of the books was The Easter Egg by Jan Brett, and my kids were intrigued again with the story about a little bunny with a big heart. Instead of creating the “perfect egg” for the Easter bunny, he spent cold and hungry days sitting on a little robin egg to keep it warm after it fell out of the nest. The story ended well, with the Easter bunny rewarding his sacrifice for the newly hatched robin, and they rode off into the sunset together to deliver the eggs for Easter.
It is a great book, a sweet book, but I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Parker looked over at me with a serious look on his face and said, “What the bunny did? It sounds like something I learned at school.” ”What do you mean, buddy?” I asked. He thought for a minute, and then told me that he learned to “think about others first, not himself.” I agreed wholeheartedly, “Yep – that’s exactly what the little bunny did, and so should we.”
He ran up to brush his teeth, but I couldn’t stop smiling as I sat there on the couch. As parents, we spend serious time trying to embed Truth in our kid’s lives. It’s a difficult task, one that sometimes feels like you are running up an icy hill with flip flops on. But sometimes, between all the positive influences in their lives, from home to school to church to family, something sticks. They begin to recognize Truth in the obscure and start to understand what living a Godly life looks like, even if it is in the form of a little fuzzy rabbit.
on wisps of passing thoughts…
The last two months have been pretty abysmal for my personal writing. It always gets shoved to the bottom of my to-do list, and when I do finally sit down to write something, I find myself distracted and unfocused. I start post after post, and never seem to find a way to finish them. My thoughts and ideas swirl around and around, and I can’t seem to snag them and nail them down to the page, making them real instead of wisps of passing thoughts.
Daily tasks? These I can handle. The concreteness of baking a loaf of banana bread for our new neighbors or folding a pile of pajamas seems doable…almost comforting compared to the nebulousness of trying to document what is going on in my head. This takes time and space, and I have neither. Stolen moments between nap times and school pickups don’t really “cut the mustard”, as my Mom used to say.
So the days tick by, the moments slide through my fingertips, and I am stuck with a head full of half-conceived thoughts and memories. Instead, the floor gets vacuumed, my email is (sort of) answered, and the papers get graded. I suppose it’s not a bad trade…the mundane for the highbrow, the essential for the indulgent.
But I miss it horribly.
It is a release that is reminiscent of jumping on the treadmill after a long day, both cleansing and invigorating. Everyone needs that release, whether it comes in the form of creating or building or exploring, but it takes a bit of effort to get back on the wagon, one small step at a time. Perhaps not demanding long discourses to pour out of my fingertips, but simple moments with the kids. I can do that, right?
What is your release? Do you run? Write? Sew? Bake? Hike? What happens when it falls to the wayside? Do you start to crumble a bit inside like me? Find the courage to start again…one small imperfect step at a time.
Follow me…