All Things.....

Today was a bad day.... and not only did I feel bad, but I felt very emotional all day long... I am pretty sure I have had at least 3 or 4 good cries today.... 

It isn't that my "suffering" is so horrible... I understand that others suffer more. Even I have experienced greater pain in the past... much greater than what I deal with daily now. I just watched "God's Comfort" with Joni Eareckson Tada on www.rightnowmedia.org. If you have access to this, you will be blessed if you watch anything on that website by Joni. In "God's Comfort," Joni spoke about living her life in a wheelchair after an accident caused her to become a quadriplegic... and also about her struggle with cancer and constant chronic pain in more recent times.

I could never measure my own brand of suffering against hers, but the wonderful thing about her is that she doesn't measure hers against mine either. She says, we all suffer in some way... it is part of life..... and so we do... Listening to her speak about her pain and suffering helps me to gain perspective, yet she speaks in such a relate-able way, I can empathize with her journey. I hurt for her.... I cry with her.

Even though I hate pain and fatigue and uncontrollable emotions, I am SO thankful for the level of empathy I have gained for others through these very things. There would be a loss of depth in my life if I had not encountered pain and suffering....grief and loss........ So, when I saw this meme, I loved it.... because people do get it wrong.... telling me to DO something ... believing that I can do whatever I want to do, if I just BELIEVE enough .... that changing my THINKING will change everything....that it is ALL up to me.... It is easier to tell a person what to do than to enter into their pain with them.

But, when I despair and become discouraged... it isn't so much because of pain and suffering as it is that I am struggling in the tension of walking out what it means to be content. What it means to have His strength flow through me EVEN WHEN my pain and fatigue do not leave me.... EVEN WHEN I feel defeated and discouraged.... EVEN WHEN I feel like my health issues are controlling me and making living life the way I WANT to live seem impossible..... EVEN WHEN I CAN'T do what others want me to do or what I want to do, nor even pretend like I can.... and even when I look perfectly normal to the rest of the world, but come home completely exhausted to my family.

Sometimes, I really do have to feel the weight of it, grieve a little, and then dust myself off and move forward. Not allowing me that moment of grief actually hampers my ability to make progress. Truly trusting the Lord comes out of acknowledging a loss fully, not in denying the loss. But, I have learned to avoid those who hamper or hinder my grief process, well-intentioned as they may be..... I just remember that Jesus is where I need to take that pain.... He gets me.... 

In the show I watched, Joni said to find others who need your empathy.... and I cried and said, "Lord, I can't do anything... I am exhausted...I don't feel good...how can I serve? " And, then just at that moment, a friend of mine tagged me on Facebook for a woman who had questions regarding miscarriage, and suddenly, I was using what God had given me to help another person. He is kind and gentle like that.... Someone else would've said, "Go find a way to serve.." which isn't bad, but isn't helpful either..... but He always seems to say, "Look up, here is someone now...." 

Sorry so long... it has been a long day.... but, in the nitty gritty of life, we all need the opportunity of a long day... because these are the days that remind us of where we draw strength.... and it reminds us that He loves us and won't abandon us... and that we can count on Him and His faithfulness.... In Him we CAN be content no matter the circumstances.... "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me...."