I woke up today with something on my heart.
It has been very hard to be so sick for so long. Whatever is going on with me is a "life-stopping" illness. :( And it just goes on and on and on, without resolution. (I still don't even know what it is!)
When something is on my heart, I pray. So that is what I did this morning.
My difficulty was with the fact that God is giving me this trial. He is not laying it on me in a mean, cruel way, but He is certainly leading me down this path of long-term illness, at the same time that so much else is going on in my life! How do I reconcile this in my mind since it is so hard to be this sick? God could rescue me from this illness at any time, and yet He does not.
Part of what was so hard this morning, was that I woke up feeling well, for a brief period of time. This happens occasionally after a night's sleep, and I wake up almost forgetting I am sick. Then when I walk around the house the dizziness sets in again, and I am in the same place. :(
To "feel" well for a few brief moments in the morning before the day got going, only to know that feeling of "wellness" would quickly be gone, is so difficult. It makes me long for complete wellness. God could do that.
But then I remembered Jesus. God didn't put him through all that he endured with the purpose of doing anything mean... that idea is preposterous!!! There was an ultimate purpose and plan. Jesus knew the entire plan. (In my case, I do not, but that doesn't matter.) He did cry, "Father, if it be possible, remove this cup from me!" But at the same time His heart wanted to do what His Father asked. He also said, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done."
So I thought about the trials that this Jesus (my Savior!) endured, and the way He must have felt through them. He did not feel, as I was tempted to, that God was doing this "to" him. (!) What was it that he felt?
He knew that his Father had a plan, and he willingly walked through each trial that this brought him through. He was not looking at the trials (as I so often do) as being what was his entire life, they were just a part of God's beautiful plan.
Oh, for a heart that sees things as my Savior does! Oh, for a heart that looks at this life in light of what is eternally true!
We can trust him with our life, with our trials, with our hopes and disappointments... with everything. Let's do that today!
Lord, give us a glimpse of what it is like to look to YOU, not "ourselves" in this life.
We love you, teach us to love you more!!!
