A time to learn important lessons

I just added a "countdown" to the right of the page that shows how many days until I get to see the doctor in Kansas City - not many left - yea!!! Now, health update first: I'm basically the same. I'm exhausted, weak, and in a good bit of pain. I am trying to muster up the energy to take a shower and wash my hair. I never thought I would see a day where taking a shower would seem like such an accomplishment! But the day is still early so who knows, I may still not get to that much needed shower. Why? Because I felt I was supposed to share the following with you.

It's a bit long, it may not be well written, but it is from the heart. The basis of it comes from something I orginally wrote to a friend. I have been sick off and on for a long time and I knew the experience had made me angry, resentful, jealous and a lot of other BAD things. I didn't want to be that person. I prayed a lot a few years ago and asked for healing. It just took me awhile to see that I needed God to heal the emotional part of me as much as I needed Him to heal the physical part of me. Otherwise all this time in spent cooped up in bed would just be wasted time. I quit work 3 1/2 years ago due to my health and I would hate to come out of this seeing all of that as just "wasted time".

A few months back I had been feeling all “poor pitiful me” – I still throw a pity party for myself now & again, but thankfully not as many and not as often! I dislike pity from other people, and I really hate self-pity, so I knew I needed help changing my attitude. I decided to read books that would help to lift my spirits. So, 2 -3 months ago I summoned up the energy to go to Barnes & Noble to find some. I came home with three. The first one I read was “Where Is God When It Hurts?” by Philip Yancey (we'll discuss the other 2 some other time). I cannot begin to tell you how helpful this book was to me in helping to turn around my mindset. The author really does an excellent job of discussing physical suffering, our constant questioning of “why” we go through it, how we go through it, and even about how people are ill equipped to know how to treat someone who IS going through it. The author spent a year meeting with a support group for terminally ill patients, he spent time with cancer survivors and chronically ill patients, and he spent time with people trying to overcome huge physical handicaps.

I already knew the statistics for people who have "positive attitudes" overcoming terminal illnesses like cancer more often than those whose views were hopeless. But it still amazed me to read how much a person's attitude could help, or in some cases hinder, their situation. The people who had faith in God did not just happily accept their fates, but they did eventually find SOMETHING about their ailment or handicap that they could view in a positive light. It might have taken them years, but the ones who achieved peace were the ones who finally quit demanding to know why God allowed these things to happen to them. The people who never could accept the "not knowing", the ones who always asked, "Why me?" seemed to lose hope and just simmered in their anger. I know these are people who faced a lot more than me in many ways and I acknowledge that if I were in their shoes, I do not know how I would react. But it did make me realize that I would much rather work on being positive than to allow myself to wallow in my own self-righteous indignation. I wanted to work towards that goal of having peace about my situation.

The author uses quotes from other authors that relate to different aspects of suffering throughout the book. So many of them really touched me and I want to share a couple on here. One is from John Donne, who lived in the 1600s. He got sick and believing he had the plague, thought he would surely die. He came very close to dying, but he survived. Historians now say they believe he never had the plague but was afflicted with typhoid fever? It was during his illness that he wrote, "Devotions" which are basically his talks with God. The following quote was shared in Philip Yancey's book:
“I can read my affliction as a correction, or as a mercy, and I confess I know not how to read it. How should I understand this illness? I cannot conclude, though death conclude me. If it is a correction indeed, let me translate it and read it as a mercy; for though it may appear to be a correction, I can have no greater proof of your mercy than to die in thee and by that death be united to him who died for me.”

Now it is a bit bleak, but he wrote this under the assumption that he would most certainly die. What I gained from it is that it clearly shows in the 400 years since then we have gotten no better at understanding WHY we suffer.

I knew I wanted my own experince with chronic illness to change me for the better. I did not want it to make me bitter. Many things have been stripped from me – my ability to work, my ability to rely on myself for even simple tasks, my ability to GO and to DO, my physical appearance has even changed, but I try hard every day to see all of it in a positive light. I personally like to think that that God is working in me so much that there just isn’t room for the other stuff. I never considered myself a “bad person” really. But I can now see that I have grown and changed through this "bad time". My spirit has been changed and will never again be the same. My priorites needed a lot of work, and now I find that things (like clothes, cars, just stuff in general) have been put in a better perspective for me. I say "better" because I am human and by nature we tend to have a hard time not desiring the "things" of the world! But, I am working on it. I have learned to thank God for simple things that cannot be bought - like EVERY beat of my heart, even those irregular ones.

Now – please understand that I am not in ANY WAY considering myself better than anyone else - I AM NOT! And, don’t get me wrong, this attitude adjustment is still ongoing and has taken YEARS to just get to this point, not months or days! I still get MAD & I still get frustrated, but I've started to allow myself to be open to learning from all of this instead of hating and cursing it all. I’m sure all of you have had some hard time in your life that you have come away "scarred but smarter" from. I'm sure you can relate to how long it takes to see something which on the surface seems so very bad as something that can lead to a change that is so very good or very needed at the least.

Since I have no children the house stays quiet - VERY quiet. I stopped watching tv during the day a year or more ago because honestly, not only was there nothing good on, but I had actually seen everything at least once! So, I would read, or send emails, or get on facebook. I would try to connect with people SOMEHOW from this prison cell of a bed. But, I've also come to see this overwhelming quiet as very peaceful at times. I know it's during that quiet that I feel God's presence and His comfort the most. Now, believe me, I've been mad at God, many times actually. But, I think I have worked through most of that and am finding my way to the other side. I’ve accepted that there is a reason (albeit far from my grasp to explain what that reason is) for the WHYS of all of this. I trust that I may never KNOW that reason here on this earth. But, I feel that when I get to Heaven, God’s going to allow me to see what this was all about.

The following quote from Fyodor Dostoyevski really helps me understand how the silence that covers my house has actually been helpful to me in making these changes:
“Sometimes I went as far as to thank destiny for the privilege of such loneliness [in Siberia], for only in solitude could I have scrutinized my past so carefully, or examined so closely my interior and outward life. What strong and strange new germs of hope were born in my soul during those memorable hours! I weighed and decided all sorts of issues, I entered into a compact with myself to avoid the errors of former years and the rocks on which I had been wrecked.”

I don’t think many people are allowed to have the time of solitude that I have gotten through my illness. A time that I kicked and screamed and cried and complained and wailed to God Himself. A time that I was forced, by my own prayers to God for conviction of His will, to see my inadequicies in such a forceful way. I have been in this bed and railed against what “God has to done to me” and cried asking Him, “Why me???”. And then He has allowed me to see just how many things I needed to change in my heart, in my life, in my simple daily actions towards others. I said I wasn’t a “bad person” and I wasn’t what society would deem a "bad person" to be, but I finally began to see how many times I missed out on being a truly GOOD person. It has shamed me and at the same time given me heart that I am finally using this time wisely. That through this I am being given a chance to see me true self with all my faults and flaws.

But seeing it all is such a hard pill to swallow! None of us want to see ourselves in a really harsh light, but because I asked God to show me where I needed to change - He did! But He did it slowly. He would build me up before allowing me to have to face so MANY things that were in me that I never wanted to claim! I thought I understood love, compassion, and friendship, but I really did not. There was no way I could have because "my understanding" of those things came from judging what other people did in comparison to what I did. YEP - that's right, I judged people according to ME! That is the painfully warped perception I had to see in myself. If someone handled a situation in the same way I thought I would handle it, I thought they were doing the "right thing". If they handled it differently, I tended to view it as the "wrong thing". Now I see how stupid that "logic" is!

I am only human and I know I will never be perfect, I don't even worry about getting anywhere near the arena of perfection! But, I asked God to use this as a time to work in me and He is doing so every day. I am trying to grasp the concept of true unconditional love, of true compassion, and of true friendship (and the third comes only after you can really understand the first two!). I finally believe that I am on the road to learning how to judge less and to love more. To let go of what I want to do and focus more on what God put me on this earth to do - to love.

Love is the action verb of the greatest commandments, right? From Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV): "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" Jesus replied, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

I pray that God takes my humble attempts at understanding my situation and uses these words to reach out to you in your own life. I pray that God works in your heart without you ever having to go through a "breaking point" or hitting an "all time low". Many people can learn things without suffering. As for me, I have a hard head and it seems I had to fall hard to break it open and I had to get over my own ego so I could finally hear what God has been trying to whisper to me forever. Apparently, up until now I ignored whispers and He could only reach me by YELLING to get my attention. For those of you who know me, this should come as no surprise at all :) But, now that He's got my attention, He's tuning my ears more toward the whispers and I am so very grateful for that. Okay, I think I'll attempt that shower before the whole day passes me by again!