I am better than I have been in recent history....but am not what I was before this flare started. Pain is worse and fatigue is greater. I got my orthopedic shoes but the jury is out as to whether or not they are proving helpful. Worst case: they will make my feet hurt worse. Yesterday I managed okay with them...and today had to take them off as foot pain was problematic....OK that's all I'm going to say about it...it's just a frustrating thing to talk about (and probably to read also).
I started reading a book today by Elisabeth Elliott - a missionary/writer/speaker who lost three husbands, the first of whom was impaled by native spears in Ecuador. This book is called "Suffering is Never for Nothing" and it was transcribed from a series of talks Elisabeth had given some years ago. She has since gone to be with Jesus after years of suffering dementia that had stolen her ability to talk.
I talked in my last blog about Trusting God as a remedy for anxiety. This book however puts a slightly different slant on trusting God....and that is to accept suffering from his hands. And it was here that I paused and considered new motives and the impacts of trusting. These are as follows: We trust him to 1) bring us through it 2) draw us closer to him 3) deepen our faith (trust) and to 4) trust him to help us endure suffering. There is much debate about the source of our sufferings. Sometimes it is demonic--from the hand of the enemy. and sometimes God gives the enemy license to "sift us like wheat," and sometimes it is discipline....but, just as we as parents hate to discipline our children with the "board of education on the seat of learning" as my mom used to say, so God I'm sure would rather have us learn lessons more easily and thereby forgo the need for discipline from his hand. But as Elisabeth said in her book...it was in the valleys of deepest suffering that she learned the deepest things about God.
She also said something that I had thought I'd learned myself...maybe God teaches this lesson to many of his children who suffer. My version goes something like this: "God,-- I hate this path you have me walking with it's pain and hardships.-- I know you are here with me in it--. I know you have purpose for it ..and -- because you are GOOD, I will believe all of this about you."
And in her discussion about trusting God...it was not the kind of "lost glasses" needed for trust. No, this is the deep, gut wrenching kind of trust...the kind that stares a cancer diagnosis in the face. Or the trust need to walk you through deep loss. Or the kind of trust needed when every single day is a greater and greater valley of pain. Now it may be that my trust up to this point has been for safety from storms or to help find something that was missing was probably Kindergarten trust. But it is in nights of not being able to move because the pain is too great where I have felt the touch of the Master's paintbrush dipped deeply in scarlet...or possibly in his own blood which preceded and exceeded any suffering I myself might experience.
I've heard a lot lately about practicing the presence of Jesus...beholding his face and loving him. There is need to allow him to carry us through out days, accepting what comes as from his hand. There is also need to, maybe even vocally, affirm our trust in Jesus no matter what comes to us in this life. So it is solely because God is Good that we could ever hope to have this kind of trust. If God was the vendetta bearing, evil being some part of us may fear he is..the authoritarian cold-hearted father that some of our fathers have been...Or the kind of father that hands us a snake when we ask for bread just for the fun of it--then we could never trust him to orchestrate our path through life. We could not come running to him to wipe our tears. We could never hope that his blood was shed on our behalf. He would not be a trustworthy God.
But what Elisabeth says about God being at work in our deepest pain, and that it is by leaning on his arm to get through whatever comes in our path, is very true. Do not fear suffering. And if you must fear then bring those fears to Jesus and allow him to give you strength to get through it and in the future you will look back and see the growth that that suffering wrought for you and the new appreciation you have for the love that God feels for us, his children.
I do not want to leave you with a sense of God beating us up in order to grow us up. Sometimes we don't know why we suffer. And it may be with us, as it was with Job, that God never explains himself in regard to our suffering. It is wrapped in the deep mystery that surrounds God and his workings. But that too, must be approached with a heart of trust....because he is, always has been, and will continue to be GOOD.
I started reading a book today by Elisabeth Elliott - a missionary/writer/speaker who lost three husbands, the first of whom was impaled by native spears in Ecuador. This book is called "Suffering is Never for Nothing" and it was transcribed from a series of talks Elisabeth had given some years ago. She has since gone to be with Jesus after years of suffering dementia that had stolen her ability to talk.
I talked in my last blog about Trusting God as a remedy for anxiety. This book however puts a slightly different slant on trusting God....and that is to accept suffering from his hands. And it was here that I paused and considered new motives and the impacts of trusting. These are as follows: We trust him to 1) bring us through it 2) draw us closer to him 3) deepen our faith (trust) and to 4) trust him to help us endure suffering. There is much debate about the source of our sufferings. Sometimes it is demonic--from the hand of the enemy. and sometimes God gives the enemy license to "sift us like wheat," and sometimes it is discipline....but, just as we as parents hate to discipline our children with the "board of education on the seat of learning" as my mom used to say, so God I'm sure would rather have us learn lessons more easily and thereby forgo the need for discipline from his hand. But as Elisabeth said in her book...it was in the valleys of deepest suffering that she learned the deepest things about God.
She also said something that I had thought I'd learned myself...maybe God teaches this lesson to many of his children who suffer. My version goes something like this: "God,-- I hate this path you have me walking with it's pain and hardships.-- I know you are here with me in it--. I know you have purpose for it ..and -- because you are GOOD, I will believe all of this about you."
And in her discussion about trusting God...it was not the kind of "lost glasses" needed for trust. No, this is the deep, gut wrenching kind of trust...the kind that stares a cancer diagnosis in the face. Or the trust need to walk you through deep loss. Or the kind of trust needed when every single day is a greater and greater valley of pain. Now it may be that my trust up to this point has been for safety from storms or to help find something that was missing was probably Kindergarten trust. But it is in nights of not being able to move because the pain is too great where I have felt the touch of the Master's paintbrush dipped deeply in scarlet...or possibly in his own blood which preceded and exceeded any suffering I myself might experience.
I've heard a lot lately about practicing the presence of Jesus...beholding his face and loving him. There is need to allow him to carry us through out days, accepting what comes as from his hand. There is also need to, maybe even vocally, affirm our trust in Jesus no matter what comes to us in this life. So it is solely because God is Good that we could ever hope to have this kind of trust. If God was the vendetta bearing, evil being some part of us may fear he is..the authoritarian cold-hearted father that some of our fathers have been...Or the kind of father that hands us a snake when we ask for bread just for the fun of it--then we could never trust him to orchestrate our path through life. We could not come running to him to wipe our tears. We could never hope that his blood was shed on our behalf. He would not be a trustworthy God.
But what Elisabeth says about God being at work in our deepest pain, and that it is by leaning on his arm to get through whatever comes in our path, is very true. Do not fear suffering. And if you must fear then bring those fears to Jesus and allow him to give you strength to get through it and in the future you will look back and see the growth that that suffering wrought for you and the new appreciation you have for the love that God feels for us, his children.
I do not want to leave you with a sense of God beating us up in order to grow us up. Sometimes we don't know why we suffer. And it may be with us, as it was with Job, that God never explains himself in regard to our suffering. It is wrapped in the deep mystery that surrounds God and his workings. But that too, must be approached with a heart of trust....because he is, always has been, and will continue to be GOOD.
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