Thursday, October 2, 2008
Another Thursday
Thursdays are hard for me. Not all of them, just every other Thursday. This is one of those Thursdays.
In general, a lot of good happens on this day of the week and I look forward to it all week long. I have my Hope Group on Thursdays; which means I get to see my friends, eat a meal with people I care about, worship, have Bible Study, pray. It's great! The thing that I don't like about every other Thursday is that it is the day I have to give myself my shot.
As a part of my treatment for RA, I have to give myself a shot every other week with an immune-therapy medication. The shot itself hurts, but that is not the part that I hate so much. The part I hate is what happens inside of me. It hurts in my heart. This is a physical reminder - aside from the pain in my body - that something is wrong with me.
I know that we all have our things that we have to deal with. And a lot of times they are hard and they just don't seem fair. This is one of those things! The thing that really hurts in my heart is that I don't think I have quite reconciled why sickness happens. I don't think that I am going to know the answer on this side of heaven - maybe not even in the perfection of heaven will I understand this mystery. I see sickness all around me in amazing people; people who are faithful and strong followers of Christ.
I have a friend whose mother has battled for years with cancer, which has recurred multiple times. The prognosis is grim. Yet, she continues to fight and praises God, The Most High King, as her Perfect Redeemer. Just watching her teaches me so much about theology. Theology is not just what you can spit out when someone asks you questions about what you believe. It is a picture of how you live your life.
My pastor and I were having a conversation several weeks ago and he asked me how my heart was. I told him that it is hard to put into words. On the one side, I love God with all of my being! I KNOW that He is good and that He is Sovereign and His will is perfect! On the other side, I hurt and I want to know why a God who can heal more quickly than I can take a breath doesn't just do it! I am angry and sad. And almost everyday, when I lay down to go to sleep at the end of the day and my body aches, I have to come before Him and say that I am angry and sad and I hurt, but that I love Him and I know that He is good. I ask Him to show me His understanding and to help me to live according to His will regardless of my situation. I also have to go through this everytime I have to give myself my shot. My pastor smiled at me and said, "Keep doing it." Then he said something that I thought peculiar at the moment. He said, "People are watching you."
I think back to my friends mom. I see that people really do watch how we live life and they pay attention to how we handle the bumps in the road. I just hope that I live life in such a way that when people see me, they see Jesus in me! And, I think that it's ok to have moments when I ask God what He is doing and why. After all, aren't those questions part of living a life of understanding God more?
So, as I close out this Thursday, I go to God and thank Him for all of the wonderful blessings He has poured over me and I ask Him for more grace and more understanding and more strength.
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1 comment:
Lynn,
I totally get questioning about why people are sick. Why is there so much pain? Why are bad things happening to good people? Why can't the best people have kids, when what seems like terrible people's houses are full of kids? Why? Why? WHY!!!???
I tore myself up on this exact question not too long ago and I feel like the Lord answered me and prompted me to seek Him. I blamed Him often for my pain both physical and emotional. He has control over everything right? So why can’t He allow my body peace?
What I have learned is the problem is really sin. And in NO WAY am I meaning that the reason people suffer, are sick, or experience great loss ARE because they are sinners and are being punished by God. No way. This is not true at all. This is what the enemy wants us to believe. he wants us to think Jesus inflicts us.
My heart determined that because of sin (Adam and Eve) the world was cursed and susceptible to corruption. Over time, like if you can imagine what the world looked like right after sin entered the hearts of men, I am sure it was WAY more beautiful than it is now. The problem is that over time, sin has increased, and so the erosion of the world, the plants, the earth, the water and so on, has progressively gotten worse.
I believe the same has happened to people. Over time, our bodies have become more susceptible to illness and disease. Because of ALL the sin over time, there are so many different diseases. Also, even though this is really hard to think about, people who were really sick back then didn’t survive. But we, with our medicine and technology help weakness survive. I know how this feels, because I know I would be one of the people weeded out. Sort of like the survival of the fittest. Now we have people who are not healthy who have children and so on and so on. There is nothing wrong with this at all, it just makes the point that our bodies too are screaming out for redemption. We are not immune to the wearing away, and becoming less alike what we were created to be.
It is not that God causes illness and disease and pain. In fact it is just the opposite, “we” have created and helped it grow through our sin. I know it is not Lynn’s sins that have made you sick, but the digression of how far we are away from God’s initial world of perfection.
When I realized all this I understood that my health is a battle for righteousness. That if I succumb to feeling like God did this, than I am wrong. I challenge you, along with anyone else who battles with health to keep fighting and believing God is there. It is not fair that you have to fight everyday and experience pain. I hate it. I love you and hope you understood what I mean through this. Talk to you soon.
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