"God's smile is not for the healthy hiker who boasts that he made the journey alone. It is, instead, for the crippled leper who begs God for a back on which to ride."

Below is a journal entry from the other day. Amazing how God can take a dismal mood and create an outpouring of joy by the end! Incredible!

10/18/2011

Everything is stressing me out and I feel furious. I'm irritated at the way my heart beats, frantic for no reason whatsoever. Why don't they show that in the Lyrica commercials?!

I cannot force myself to be magically better. I know I have to rest. I know I have to heal. I know I have legitimate physical disabilities that keep me locked in place...

FOR NOW.

Lord, help me to reign in this feeling of drowning, of being caged, of being lost. Realign my heart with yours. Let me see myself the way you see me. A part of me senses that certain people think that if I just try I will get better. I want to scream. I "try" every damn day! I want to have a job. I want to have my independence back.

How can I plan to go to Paris someday when I cannot even lift my own orange juice?!

Oh Jesus, I feel no joy right now. I recognize my blessings but I can't seem to marinate in them right now. All I feel is anger and annoyance.

I am glad for the blessings. I recognize how very fortunate I am and still anger lashes out of me in hot spurts.

Anguish.

Of the soul.

Annoyance over what others pretend to be. So exhausted of peoples stipulations. I want to be away. I want to be on foreign soil. I want to write. I want to read books. I want to enjoy the loveliness of nature while sitting alone on a park bench.

Will I ever be be free? Free from Fibromyalgia? Free from myself?

Right now I yield. I say "okay" to what I need to do, what feels like defeat... my stepping stone to the future before me. I need to take my own advice.

I am 31 years old. I still have time. I didn't go to Paris when I was 18 like a friend and I had planned. I cannot work right now. I am financially dependent on my parents. I am lucky to have parents. But God, you move mountains. You strike the night sky with thunder and lightening and you pour water from the clouds. You say and it becomes.

This is a bedroom filled with stuff. This is a place to rest. This is my refuge because You are here. I am not lost, I am not alone. I am not stuck. I am in motion, I am being weaned of myself and brought to my face before you. I am found ONLY because I have lost and continue to lose. I am honored to be rebuked by you. I am honored to know this unbreakable love you have for me. I am perfumed in the most fragrant of your oils.

I WILL be healed. I will walk the nations. I will pray out the prophetic dreams you have placed within me. I will speak your truth and watch lives change.

I will always be Yours. You know my failures, every single one. You know the anger I carry, the sadness, the joy. You know my every impurity and you know my every motive- good and bad.

I am guilty of so much sin and still you choose me everyday. You wipe the slate clean and you remind me that I am yours FOREVER.

Not just when I'm walking right. Not just when I attend church. Not just when I sing to you. I am yours ALL THE TIME. When I make unwise choices you are there. When I pick a fight or hurt with my tongue, you offer forgiveness and you show me how to ask that others would forgive me.

You bring wholeness to what was broken. You've redeemed my life from the pit. A real dark and ugly pit. You have stolen my heart and ravaged my soul for your cause.

I am sold out. I am in the romance of a lifetime.

Every decision I have made has been under your careful, watchful eye. I have gone down some beaten paths and you have chided me back on the way I should go. You are involved. You are enveloping me in an embrace I will never want to remove myself from.

You have brought victory where there was only defeat. You have claimed my life. You have romanced me with the brilliance of your Son.

I AM FREE. I am not caged. I am able to go through the impossible ways because you part the sea! You fight my foes, you avenge me. You make ALL things possible.

I trust you. I believe you. I hear you. I am loved. I am a survivor. This is nothing in comparison to your victory.

WOW.

My knee shall ever bow before you. I am in awe of you. I am in love with you. There can be no compromise. You ask for ALL of me.

How could I ever say no to a God who has saved my very life?

There is sincerely no other place I enjoy more then in your presence. I love to sit beside you, leaning against you. I love how sometimes we don't even speak- you just hold me and I know it's all going to be okay. More than okay. I love how I am always invited into your courts. I love how you let me feel you and hear you and move with you.

More Abba, more!

I am hungry! I am so hungry for you! I want more. I want you, Jesus. Not church, not books, YOU. I want your presence always. I want the sweetness of relationship with you.

Come, Lord, come.

Long ago I wrote you a letter asking you to take all of me. I told you that I wanted to surrender all of myself to you. I signed that letter. That was a commitment to you and I shan't be stunned when you answer that prayer. Take it. Take it. Take it.


"To love and to be loved is the bedrock of our existence. But love must also flex and adapt. Rigid love is not true love. It is veiled manipulation, a conditional time bomb that explodes when frustrated. Genuine love willingly waits! It isn't pushy or demanding. While it has its limits, its boundaries are far-reaching. It neither clutches nor clings. Real love is not shortsighted, selfish, or insensitive. It detects needs and does what is best for the other person without being told."

1 Corinthians 13:7
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.


10/20/2011

I have swung from two extremes. Before I got sick I was constantly exhausted. I was a people-pleaser. I said yes with my mouth far too often. Did no even exist back than? Not for me. I said yes to commitments and put my needs at the bottom. I thought that was what a good Christian woman did.

Then I got sick and I realized that I needed to learn how to embrace the word no. It has not been easy. I continued to be a yes person for months and months, and then when my health made the "yes" impossible, my mantra became "maybe".

I lived in "maybe" for a long time. Far longer then I should have. I put off facing my illnesses for as long as I could.

Living in "maybe" brought resentment and anger and fear and loneliness. For every maybe I felt the loss of my old self over and over and over. I was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.

And somewhere in the "maybe" I started to get selfish. At first I thought that was a good thing. What better way to learn "no" then to be selfish? I didn't know I was being selfish. My eyes were closed. I only knew the desperation to not live as a yes or a maybe anymore. So I clawed my way through and ended up in a place where my needs came first. Not in an obvious way. I was still "nice." I was still me but with some minor tweaks. I read numerous articles and got advice about saying no and not feeling guilty, about learning to take care of myself living with Fibromyalgia.

I never quite mastered that. Ever since I became a believer I wrestled with that. Nowhere in scripture does it ever say that Jesus was selfish. Other Christians would say "God doesn't call us to be doormats." Even before I got sick I pondered that A LOT.

No, no He did not call us to be doormats, but He did call us to serve, to love, to put others ahead of ourselves. He took time away to be with His Father, as we should too, but He also gave and gave and gave.

Some might argue, "well I'm not Jesus. He knows I sin and he doesn't expect me to (insert whatever here)."

But didn't He?

Don't we live to be like Jesus?

So doesn't that mean that we continue to serve? That we continue to love? That we continue to hold others above ourselves?

Even when we are broken....

even when we are sick...

even when we don't feel like it...

I'm not saying we shouldn't take care of ourselves, and obviously there are very real limitations we may have. There are very real limitations I do have, but I am tired of living in a selfish place.

Right now I am transitioning into "no."

No to schedules.

No to activities that will suck away at Fibromyalgia and leave me worse for the wear.

No to commitments deemed important in churches or by people.

When I first got sick and couldn't make it to a church function, someone told me proudly, "well when I am not feeling well I just show up and do it anyway."

Boy, oh boy did I feel bad! I felt like I must be the worst person to not be able to hack it. She must have been more spiritual. She must have been better the me.

Now I realize that she was wrong.

I am not called to a church function.

I am not called to a party.

I am not called to to-do's.

I am called to love.

I am called to compassion.

I am called to justice.

I am called to heal.

I am called to pray.

I am called to set the captives free.

I am called to HIM.

Doesn't that just make someone want to break down in awe? It breaks me. Every single time. Literally I sit here choked up. God is amazing. AMAZING.

I have come out of "maybe" only recently. Something is clicking and I am understanding that my health is important. More important then I have wanted to validate. I am sitting when I need to, laying down when I need to, being alone so I don't lash out when I need to... and I'm still making mistakes! I still get angry, I still say mean things, I still judge in my heart when I don't want to, I am still imperfect, and that is okay. It is okay because God knows everything about me and He chose me anyway. I have been camping out in "no" for only a short time, and I can already tell this is not where I am called to be.

I am not called to be selfish or self-focused. That is a lie. That is wrong.

So what is the middle ground?

Maybe it is to be responsible? To be open?

Because I know that sometimes "no" is valid, but I pray I will always, always, always leap to "yes" when God is calling me to love on someone else.

Not a building, not a program, not a job, not for status...

but for Him.