Thursday, May 21, 2020

All Good Things Must End

I've been at my dad's house for a week and am returning home this coming Saturday.  I do not want to go back home (although my recliner is WAY more comfortable than this recliner (a.k.a. "instrument of torture") is here.  I can barely stand up from sitting on it and cannot do so without a cry of pain.

I am constantly appalled by how limited I am in walking distance tolerance...doing ANYTHING useful...can't even stand long enough to wash off more that 3 or 4 dishes  in the sink...Just now I walked into the kitchen ( I use Canadian forearm crutches) and the pain was so bad from that 20 second walk that I had to sit in a kitchen chair until I could bear to walk to the refrigerator.

Sometimes I feel guilty about being so challenged physically. And mentally too.  I tell myself I really should get a job.  Or clean and paint my daughter's bedroom and then  --I need to use the bathroom and barely make it back to the recliner before tears come.  If I can't sweep my kitchen floor...then no, Cynthia, you cannot work! And then I think of all of the things I once did, so easily --and it is heartbreaking to think I will never do those things again.  I just haven't gotten used to or accepted that reality.

I could never write another book.  My vision, hands and my brain are all in the way of that. You may have noticed wrong word substitutions or wrong tenses, or other errors. Years ago this would never have happened. Now I have to proof read every single sentence and the errors are so pervasive and sneaky, I sometimes miss so of them.  It could maybe be caused by brain fog from autoimmune disease. Or the encroaching damage to my brain from SZ (Schizophrenia) ...or  my medications.  Or ECT or all of the above.

I really need to seek to be filled daily with God's Spirit. I think that too much of what I do is being done by self-effort. Even here in the quiet --where i literally have a prayer closet, it is hard to focus; hard to pray.  Often it takes me hours in Penuel,  not because I am accomplishing much but because my brain is so inefficient and distractable.   I have been floundering in a sea of indecision about what to do next for Penuel (my "Quiet Time")  ..I finished the chronological Bible.  I want to do more memorization. I would really like to learn some longer passages - like chapters or even short books in the Bible but again I have been stalled by the "what should I do next?" problem.    I also want to study some passages in depth.  And also want to do some reading in the Christian classics.  But that is a HUGE bite to chew.  And maybe something will have to go. Tom Meyer (the "Bible Memory Man" --Google him!) said it takes him one HOUR a day of study and a month of that to learn one chapter. And over a year to memorize a book.   He knows 20 books by heart....Even tough books like Genesis (with all the geneologies and numbers of years each person lived.) and like Revelation.  I admire him to no end.  I have ordered his Study Memorization Bible and am waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

I will figure it out and I will spend some time listening and waiting for God to speak before I move forward in any direction.

No comments: