Solitude and Serenity

In my last post I groaned and complained a lot. I guess I wanted to come home and see that being away from the stress of the clinic, being in my own house, would allow me to stop seizing. I wanted to be able to see people and visit with friends and family. But the truth is that I simply cannot do that. It's hard to explain this to people and for them to understand. If I wasn't living it I wouldn't understand it either.

I was complaining a lot about feeling so isolated and alone. I still miss my treatment friends and my nurses. That was where I could socialize a little at least. However, I can't do it here. The stress of treatments and the treatments themselves make everything difficult. I get frustrated with things and my brain gets overwhelmed so easily. Tuesday was extremely stressful as the nurse came to attend to my PICC line dressing and to draw my blood. For some reason my body goes through a lot of stress on blood draw days. Also, this was a different nurse so I was worried about meeting another new person. By that night I had a meltdown and was about to go into a seizure. M got me an Ativan to melt in my mouth and the tremors subsided. But it made me feel so very alone. The idea that I cannot handle the stress of seemingly easy things upsets me. Then yesterday I got excited about a delivery - it was a ring that my parents and my sister and her family got me for my birthday. I got it while I was in Kansas City, but it was the wrong size so I had to send it back and wait on the new size to come. I was so happy to get it yesterday. Then there were a couple of deliveries pertaining to M's business and my little poodle had to bark to let us know someone was coming to the door. When I don't expect his bark it really startles me. By the time treatment started my temp was 100.8 and I was a wreck. Then M knocked over a picture frame and the noise of it hitting the hardwoods was like the straw on the camel's back. Again, with the help of Ativan I only had a "partial seizure". I told M through my tears that this was "no life" - it's living in total isolation while wanting so badly to see people. Just being happy and excited makes me seize and I questioned what kind of life that was. It upset me to realize that I can't even get happy or excited anymore because I can seize. Even happy things or happy times can be stressors and trigger the seizures.

I was mad. I was upset. I was thankful to be home, but wondered why God would give me in the instruction to go home when I couldn't do anything I wanted to do. I knew I needed to focus on something spiritual to get rid of that anger. I got my book "100 Days In The Secret Place" and randomly opened it to a page. I've quoted from that book before, but God laid it on my heart to just open it and He led me to read about how this isolation can be so very positive. I will share a large part of what I read that touched my heart so much:

"There are two ways for the soul to be cleansed. The first is through affliction, anguish, distress and inward torment. The second is through the fire of a burning love, a love impatient and hungry. It is true that sometimes the Lord uses both of these ways to deal with our souls. All revelation and insight into God, all true experiential knowledge of God, arises from suffering, which is the truest proof of love.

Oh, how I hope and wish for you that you can understand the great good that comes from tribulation. Tribulation cleanses the soul. The cleansing of the soul through tribulation is what produces patience.

Within tribulation can come inflamed prayer. In the midst of tribulation we can exercise the most sublime acts of love and charity. To rejoice in the midst of tribulation brings us near to God. It is tribulation that annihilates and refines. It is that which takes the earthen and transforms it to the heavenly. Out of the human it brings for the divine...transforming one and bringing it to the other, uniting them with the Lord.....

(Cont.) There are two kinds of solitude. There is an outward solitude when one simply does not speak, or speaks little. There is also an inner solitude. Inner solitude means forgetting about everything around you, being detached from it, surrendering all purpose and desire and thought and will, and then coming before the Lord. This is true solitude. You will find it to be a sweet rest and an inward serenity...found in the arms of your Lord. For that believer who is able to stay in such a place before his Lord there will be a great number of discoveries.

For the believer who comes this far there is the discovery that the Lord converses and communicates with the believer in his inward parts. It is in that place the Lord fills the believer with Himself...but fills him only because that person is empty; He clothes him with light and with love because he is naked, lifts him up because he is lowly, and unites him with God and transforms him, because he is alone.

I see this solitude with God as a figure of eternal bliss - a picture of that further time when the eternal Father will be forever beheld." - Michael Molinos written in the 1600s.

So I thought about this isolation and realized that it is a time of solitude and that God planned it that way. When I try to do what I WANT TO DO, He has a way of literally shaking me right out of it and putting me back to solitude. He is working on me so much - and I have a lot to work on, believe me. However, reading that and realizing that most people never get this kind of solitude made me realize how much God is trying to reach me. I trust He has plans for my life that include wonderful things but I'm in a temporary fire. I am being melted down and reformed into what He wants me to be before He sends me to the next part of my life. I read so much more from that book and at times would read and then lay the book on my chest and just rest in God's presence. I would close my eyes and thank God for the prayers He has answered for me. I realized how "human" I've become with my pity party about not being able to see people. That is a temporary thing. I will get back to a normal life later but even then I will have to continue to turn towards God every day and instead of being the "old me", I will be whatever God has in mind for me to become. So, yes, I'm wearing an oxygen mask all the time, and yes I am still dealing with hard IV treatments, and yes I get frustrated with how slow my progress is. Those are natural human emotions. However, they are not what God wants me to feel. He wants me to see the many improvements He has given me and the many, many prayers He has answered. He wants me to focus on my daily life - not worry about tomorrow - just focus on Him every day so that I give my burdens over to Him daily. He has let me know this is temporary, but He also lets me know that temporary doesn't mean my understanding of that word - it means HIS understanding of that word - HIS understanding of time - and I know that HIS timing is always perfect.

I know this was a long one. But, I felt that others might read those same passages I read and feel a peace resting in their soul. I know it changed my outlook a lot. God is always present. He is always near. We only have to turn inward, seek Him in the Holy Spirit He granted us with, and be silent. Solitude and serenity actually go hand in hand. I will be very happy when I get to visit with friends and family, but for now I will seek the serenity of solitude and see how I can learn in this time how to be more loving and more patient and seek God's will for me. Instead of complaining about what I can't do, I will turn to God and see all that He CAN do. He can do so much if we only give control of our lives to Him. It's a hard thing to do, I'm still working on it and will probably continue to work on it daily until my last days because it is so different from what our human brains want to do. I pray that God teaches me many things through this solitude and that I accept the serenity that comes from merely being alone with God, soaking in His divine love.

Yesterday and today my daily calendar once again has good verses that go along with what God is telling me. Yesterday's verse:

"God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26 (NIV)

Today's verse:

"Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

Much love-
K