I am very sick. After starting treatment for lyme disease, I got sicker. (This is what usually happens.) After not getting any better as expected after 4 weeks, my Dr. took me off my medication. After a week of no improvement after that, she prescribed something to help my body detox from all of the dead lyme pirochetes in my system that are (presumably) causing me to be so sick. That medication hasn't come in yet, and I'm just waiting, about as sick as I can imagine being. (Probably sicker than I have been since this started... and I have been pretty sick!)
I can't sit up much, so for 5 weeks I've been stuck laying down, most of the time. My head keeps reeling, and I'm horribly dizzy. I can only walk very slowly (hanging on as I walk). I can't think or speak straight, and I can't keep my thoughts together.
We all have those moments where we forget what we were doing, but that is now my constant life. I am continually having to stop and remember what I was doing/saying/thinking to get through each step of every thing that I do. I completely forget what I have already done, where I have put things, if I have said something... I have literally "lost my mind" overnight.
And to clarify, it is not just an annoyance. Literally EVERY step of EVERY task, conversation, or thought is a repeating pattern of forgetting and remembering, without end, for 5 weeks straight now. (At least I can remember, with effort!)
Life is very hard like this.
This morning I was hungry and went out to the kitchen to make myself some eggs. (I'm sticking to a low-carb, no sugar diet, so finding something to eat in itself is hard. Thankfully there are always eggs. :) )
It is so hard to do something like this. And I needed to get my vitamins too... I started praying (out loud), "Lord, please help me." I wanted to get through the day, and each small step seems so monumental at this point!
Almost immediately, there was a song in my heart:
"I've got joy ev-er-last-ing,
I've got joy ev-er-last-ing,
I've got joy ev-er-lasting
In my soul..."
The Lord gave me what I needed for that moment. It wasn't physical strength. (As I proceeded to get my stuff together I started shaking so much that it interfered with my ability to get it!) But I could proceed to labor on, fighting to live this (and every) day and do what must be done, because of the hope I have in what God has promised to me. :)
This is a hard thing to comprehend. Here I am so very, very sick and (to everyone I think!) it seems like to fix the situation, the Lord should just heal me. (Or at least let me start getting better!)
I was thinking the other night, while watching a movie showing a stadium full of Jews on their way to Auswitch and seeing the obvious fear from their circumstances, "They need to trust God." I was thinking that because it was true, not because it was easy. They were scared and they didn't even know (beyond rumors) what was going to happen to them. I knew what was going to happen, and what a "hopeless" life THEIRS was to live at that moment, and yet I could see they needed to be trusting God, even though He was not going to deliver most of them from the imminent death before them.
And then, of course, the conviction hit me. I am in a very, very difficult set of circumstances right now, and what needs to be done is no different in my case than in theirs! I need to trust God, EVEN THOUGH He is not delivering me (that I can tell) from this trial yet. I need to trust God even if this trial stays with me for the rest of my life. (!)
It is funny how easy it is to see what is true in other people's lives, but not so much when it is your own experience.
But I am thankful for all of God's reminders, and for the song and message today. I am still very, very sick for a prolonged period of time, but God knows, and I DO have "joy everlasting" even though today is difficult. :)
(Thank You, Lord!)
