[amazing grace]

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing Your praise
Than when we first begun

:::

Friday August 20, 2010:

(Some reflections written yesterday that couldn’t be posted until now since our internet was acting up during all the storms last night!)

I am simply in awe of His grace, tonight. Thankful. Seen. Known. Loved. Blessed.
He has heard my cries out to Him this week. In my anguish, in my pain, in my hopelessness, in my loneliness.

Father, I simply thank You for who You are tonight.
For how beautiful. How amazing, how wonderful You are.

You see every tear I cry. You’re here every moment of sorrow and defeat.
When I laugh, I find you laughing with me. When I weep, You are there weeping with me.
You are not a God that sits idly by. But one that rejoices and mourns, who is broken as well in the face of brokenness, sorrow and heartache.

You carry me when I refuse to take another step.You bless me and provide me with friends who I am reminded of how much they are a gift and how blessed I am to have them in my life. As I sit and share life with them over coffee or over pizza or over babysitting for a friend together. The countless ways you have provided for my every need this week blows me away. In the big and small ways. The countless little things no one will ever know or recognize. Yet the things that made my heavy heart leap, and dare to hope, to know there will be an end to this season, someday.

Just when I am close to giving up. When the shriek of my pain seems so loud it becomes deafening. That not a second was not seen and felt by You. That You have been here with me every second. Through the raw ugliness of it all as well as the moments I am reminded as I sit across the table from a friend and have sushi, or get a phone call that reminds me that I am still wanted and I am still loved. That you’ve been there with me through it all.

I stand now in awe of Your grace.

Humbled by your majesty. Grateful for relief from the pain the last two days. For how the appointment went with the doctors. For a plan. For someone to be taking action on my behalf.

I stand now in awe of your grace.

For providing me with people to walk through life with here, not just through what I'm going through, but in the daily challenges they face as well no matter their situation. The reality that we all need You and we all need each other. That none of us are immune from pain and brokenness. That none of us are immune to the reality that sometimes life is just hard. And opening our arms to a day is in itself an act of faith.

Lord, I thank you for who You are. For how you’re meeting me through these books and speaking to my heart in the ways you know I need the most.

I am simply in awe of your grace.

Of how much you love me. Of how loving and gracious you are. I feel I’ve been given a part of my life back. To have experienced five hours out of the house today with no pain, not needing to use the icepacks I now keep in a cooler in my car while I’m out and about, to allow me to be out longer, not needing a heat back or to rest until after my hair appointment and lunch date. Simply amazing. How crazy it is that pain has become so normal, that just even five hours pain-free felt like a miracle. Father I thank you. for pushing me to action this week, to give me the courage to call and demand to be seen this week as things were spiraling more and more out of control each day, for how you met with Ben and I as we discussed our expectations and battle plan for what we wanted from the doctors, for the hope I refused to give to seeing the doctors, yet how you blew away and surprised us both.

Yes, You are alive and You are near. You are just as active on the days when nothing seems to be happening fast enough as you are on the days where swift action and more tests and more exams are ordered.

I am simply in awe of Your grace tonight.

Thank you for today.
Thank you for allowing me to experience a night of sleeping all the way through and waking up this morning for the first time in a long time, pain-free.
Thank you that I can walk around the house again and not be reeling with pain. that I can move about more freely now. Drive again.

I thank you for my amazing husband. How well you know me and how much you have blessed me with just the person you knew would best love and treat me with the tenderness that you do, who has been able to go places with me in my heart no one else has been able to go, that you have provided a best friend, a partner, a soul mate, a lover, to be in this together. That you have blessed me with someone who I’m reminded each day is none other than a gift. Thank you so much.

Thank you for the beautiful people you’ve placed in my life. the conversations and time I was able to share with friends this week. Those moments that are truly redemptive and transcending in nature. When I realize how much they are a gift to be and how blessed I am just to know them.

Thank you for meeting me in my pain, in my loneliness, in this difficult season Ben and I are walking through, sometimes crawling, stumbling through together with you. Knowing you alone are our savior. You alone know the way and what every step of this will look like. As we continue to grieve when the time to grieve, continue to rejoice the time to rejoice, continue to cry out and question in the times to do that, continue to wrestle, doubt and name our fears, continue to embrace, ruthlessly trust and place our hope in You, You are our hope, You and You alone.

I don’t know what I need. I don't know if or when I'll get better. I don't know what the rest of today or the next few hours hold. All I know is I cannot do this alone. I need You. Not a moment goes by where I can do this one my own.
All I know I need is your grace.

So precious, astounding and amazing is your grace. I thank You I do not have to know all the answers. All I need is You. And your grace that surpasses logic, reason and all understanding. I once was lost, and now I'm found. Was blind but now I see, so clearly...

This song has been on repeat I don't know how many times last night and today, as I've been experiencing His grace as truly sufficient, and all that I need. We had some friends sing and play "Grace Like Rain," one of our favorite songs, at our wedding as Ben and I took communion, our first meal together as husband and wife and a time for us together to pray and thank our God and commit our marriage to Him. Every time I heard it before that and now, I'm reminded of the truth and power of the gospel, a power and a grace that seems too good to be true, but one that reflects the true nature of the heart of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Who alone lavish grace like rain... unending and so amazing.

"Grace Like Rain" by Todd Agnew

[Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I'm found
Was blind but now I see so clearly

Hallelujah, grace like rain… falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains… are washed away, washed away

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

Hallelujah, grace like rain… falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains… are washed away, washed away

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing Your praise
Than when we first begun

Hallelujah, grace like rain… falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains… are washed away, washed away]

.:: He alone ::.

So the other day I was out on my daily ritual of leaving the house for a couple hours to go run errands, a way for me to feel some sense of independence and have something in my day where I can get around and feel normal again.

And my legs were burning and tingling so bad I couldn't even use my calf muscles to push the acceleration pedal in the car. Then as happened periodically that day, my legs would randomly go numb in the middle of driving, causing me to stop several times until I regained feeling again. Not fun.

So conveniently, I was next to a Starbucks, and decided to go read in there for a while until my legs calmed down and I'd be able to make it home.

This was the beginning of the last four days where my leg symptoms have been getting increasingly more and more out of control. I remember sitting down and just feeling defeated.

I was already winded and it was only 1 pm that day, I had only done two out of the four errands and things I was hoping to get to do and somehow needed to be able to last until at like 9 pm that night, when we'd be getting out of church. Every muscle in my legs was aching and I literally sat there wondering if the feeling would come back and what it would mean if it didn't. It is always scary when you think you've experienced the worst of something only to find out there was an even more painful option.

I sat there thinking after pulling out all my books and a bible study I was excited to get to do, and remembered the last thing the barista said to me, "I really like your shirt, that is really cool."

I've talked to her and her co-workers every time I go in there, there's a strange sense of familiarity as we make small talk about our days or what is going on in our lives. They've become friends. Sad but true, since I frequent all three Starbucks in town, and Kaldis so much, I know most of all the workers and its like they are family. They have become a part of my life and I've become a part of theirs. We moved from small talk about demographics, school, etc. to the deeper things in life. I just started opening up to them about being sick, as sometimes they've seen friends drop me off or bring in my bag and books in for me and then leave, or that I haven't been there as much, what have you been up to.

It's weird that in a strange sense, getting a tall, iced, nonfat with whip white mocha is one of the last things I have that hasn't changed. I love going there and seeing my friends and enjoying this familiar drink which has been a simple pleasure in life and a constant in the midst of so much uncertainty.

One girl in particular, I am always intrigued by how she is with every customer. She's one of those cute and trendy, hipster girl, really gorgeous, great personality, dark black hair, awesome tattoos sleeved on each arm, funky earrings. And was caught off guard when she couldn't stop looking at my t-shirt and then finally said something about it.

It was an old Rock shirt that had Psalm 62:2, the verse that the name The Rock was inspired from some 10 or so years ago.

Thanks, I said. And I remember instantly wondering if she was a Christian. Her tone was different when she said it, especially when she said, "that is really cool."

She instantly knew something about me as she read the shirt. And I realized how vulnerable it is to even wear a shirt like that around. To the people who don't really know much about you, they within an instant came assume a lot of things about you, positively or negatively.

I sat down, still kinda stunned at how her demeanor had changed so much after reading my church, as if those words really spoke to her.

Once I had sat down and my legs were enjoying the first few moments of rest, I found myself looking down at my shirt to see what it said. It was weird because her words were simple. But for some reason, even though other people have pointed it out to me before, random strangers I might see in Starbucks or shopping, I have never looked down at the shirt after those encounters to read what my shirt said. I already knew what it said, why look?

Funny how something that you've seen so many times and is so familiar can catch you by surprise as something new jumps out at you after the probably 201 glances I've given that shirt each time I've washed it, folded it, put it on, put it in a drawer. As if now something caught your eyes that before just seemed to blend in.

It was the word "alone."

The shirt read from Psalm 62:2,

"He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken."

Psalm 62 is one of my favorite passages.

As I looked it up in my bible, searching for how I never saw that word before that I now couldn't stop from ringing in my mind.

It wasn't there. Huh. Somehow I never noticed the difference in the translations, but was deeply affected and ministered to in that moment by someone pointing out they liked my shirt.

Just the words "He alone," was all my soul desperately needed to here.

John the other day talked about how self-reliant and not God-reliant we can be and how we are often so in love with the illusion of control.

Within the first week of dealing with this condition and every day since then, when my own illusion of control was completely busted open, I find it more and more laughable how naive we go through most of our lives, believing, thinking we have some sort of control.

That day was particularly difficult as I found myself not even being able to control the next hour, let alone the rest of the day. I was running errands then planning on coming home to rest, eat lunch and then head to have coffee with one of the girls at 2.

As of 1:40, after laying down for 20 minutes hoping things would get better, I finally had to call her and reassure her I still would love to see her but we had a couple of options, either she would come here and we could talk and have tea on the porch or inside or she could pick me up and we could still go to Kaldis, but that I was really sorry, I tried to drive earlier in the day and my legs keep going numb, Ben is sleeping since he worked overnight and so I have no way to get there, I can risk driving again... And it was a really hard call for me because I find myself having to say no to more and more things last minute because I couldn't predict yesterday where I'd be at today at 2 pm.

But, I realized how much I needed to hear the words of Psalm 62 earlier that day to allow me to accept and embrace the reality that this is just the nature of the season and the growing battle that I will have to fight this semester as all the students come back that I desire to still spend time with and be involved with their lives, that it will just look way different, even from day to day.

"He alone" was such a powerful phrase because I can put my trust in none other, I can depend on, rely on none other ... than Him alone.

Not in doctors figuring it out, not in being able to trust myself and know what I can and cannot do in a day, or the next few hours, not in reason that all of this would make sense, not in medications, not in treatment plans, not in relieving the pain, not in healing and recovering, I cannot place my trust anywhere, but in Him. He alone...

I spent more time with those passages that have become so deeply intertwined with my heart and speaking to me in the moments when hope and relief seem so far away.

I spoke these words to my soul, Saturday the day I ran into her and after my encounters with God this morning, paraphrasing different psalms that have impacted me, allowing His words to penetrate and touch me deeply within.

:::

Truly my soul finds rest in God,
my salvation and my hope come from him,

for He alone is my rock and my salvation;
my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,

for you are with me,
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You lead me beside quiet waters,
make me lie down in green pastures,

You restore my soul.

Hear my cry, O God,
save me and protect my life from the threat of the enemy.

Let my strength be in you.
My Healer, my Father, my Friend.

Closer than my very breath
Lord, I feel you near.

I feel your love surround me as you bring me deeper into your presence.

I feel the chaos within me slowly coming to stillness in your embrace.

What are you afraid of? I hear you gently ask me.

Everything, I reply as the tears stream down my face.

As you every tear fall from my eyes, I feel you near, I hear you speaking to me.

I know I am going to be okay.

As I ask you for wisdom, I rest in the assurance of your love for us.
That you will lead and guide us, that you will provide a way to expedite the process.

That you, alone, can do this.
That you, alone, will pull us through.
Lord, your love is enough, I'm holding onto you,
God, your love is enough, you will pull me through, I will follow You...

Lord, give us strength, for we are weak.
We ask for your grace, for it alone is sufficient.

You alone are my rock and my salvation;
my hope, my peace, my treasure, my delight.

Though the mountains be shaken,
and the hills be removed,
yet your unfailing love for us will not be shaken,
nor your covenant of peace be removed.

Yes, Lord, you are my refuge and my strength,
my fortress, my ever-present help.

Yes, blessed be your name.

You alone are worthy of my praise,
yes, I will trust in You.

.:: a thief in the night ::.

It was like a thief came in the night.

Taking away life as I once knew it and giving me a new way of living, a new way of being in this world.

A new way to be human…

Without my consent.

It took what I once knew as life and in exchange gave me a garment I never would have asked for. Yet knowing to grieve yet also embrace this garment was not only critical for my heart but for my own now 26-year journey I’ve been on with God.

I shudder yet am in awe at the reality that even from the very beginning, from that first ER visit, something within me knew that there was something more going on, more than I could even comprehend at the time.

-- SUFFERING AS A SACRED JOURNEY --

“We have all faced such moments—times when we recognize anew that we are called to journey that will shape us and change us.

The journey has the potential to heal us or harden us. It will harden us if we attempt to do an end run around the desert, valley, or craggy peak where God compels us to walk.

It will soften, break, mold, and heal if we choose to take our sorrow and suffering by the hand and walk by faith into the damage of our past, the struggles of the present, and our fears of the future.” - Dan Allender, The Healing Path

I knew even from the very beginning that this was the start of something I knew not all entirely what, but there was a distinct shift, as if I felt the thief making the trade and found myself reeling, asking myself surely this isn’t what I bargained for.

Some days I can’t even remember how good life felt before I got sick. That life seems so far away and so unreal.

Such a far cry from the realities that have become my daily existence.

And it is just like that
In a moment

That everything can change.

I find just when I begin to understand how to function, adopting a pattern of medication, heat, ice, more medication, knowing what activities I can do, knowing what activities I can’t do, that suddenly that thin rug of security and normalcy gets ripped out from underneath me.

I find that instead of this being a linear journey, the type of journey that makes the most sense to us, the one that seems the most fair, the most reasonable, you know where things progress and improve on a upward linear slope, that this is anything but that.

That instead of linear, I feel like I’m going around in circles. Instead of progressing, regressing.

Wait, this doesn't make sense, we think. As it shatters the formula in my mind that as time goes on things will just naturally improve, get better, go away. Time is moving forward, but I'm going backwards.

Just when I think the pain is the worst its ever been, a new pain gets factored into the equation. Or just when I feel I now know what to do if my legs go completely numb while I am trying to walk or drive, or just get about in the house, that suddenly new symptoms start developing, and the pain and the tingling/numbing sensations that I now know somewhat how to manage, begins to spiral out of control. And I am in this place where the terrain looks hauntingly familiar to where we started.

Going in circles.

-- THROUGH DESERTS AND VALLEYS --

“A loss of faith comes when God no longer seems predictable and sure. It comes when our heart desperately longs for him to change the outcome of a situation and he chooses not to act according to our best sense of what is good. It is when our healthy, beautiful child dies under the wheels of our care. Or when our happy, secure marriage crumbles. Or when the deep, God-given desire to have children dies with an emergency hysterectomy…

Our heart aches for good things, legitimate desires. And when God refuses to act to keep those desires alive, we find that our faith falters. Sometimes it dies. When faith withers, so does our capacity to remember his redemption with awe and gratitude.

When we lose faith, we also feel powerless to change our future…

This precarious new piece of bad news symbolized my newly awakened conviction that life is not predictable, except in its unpredictability." - Allender

-- EXPOSING THE INTENTIONS OF EVIL --

But you know what, it is interesting that we say “a thief that comes in the night” because this is exactly the sinister nature of the one we all know as our Enemy.

We are told that our Enemy has three missions: to steal, kill and destroy.

Period.

There is nothing else. Yet he weaves his mastery into a cloak that looks anything but deceiving but one that seems to embody truth.

To the suffering and the sick, he says, "your God is not strong enough. Your God is not big enough. Come on, if He really loved you, He would make you better by now, or the doctors would have figured out what is wrong with you, or you no longer have a purpose, you can’t do anything, you struggle just to make it through a day how are you ever going to do all you once did, you’re never getting any better, just quit making a fool out of yourself, no one will be able to help you, you no longer have anything to offer, why hope, you see where that got you, do you really think there is a day where you will not be dealing with this,

you’re not getting anywhere might as well give up now, things aren’t getting any better, look your symptoms are right back where it all started, they are only getting worse, there is no hope for you, you will just have to suffer with this the rest of your life, we’ll never find what is causing the symptoms, you will just have to deal, your God isn’t going to come through for you, all of your friends will abandon you, you are so weak now, no one wants to take care of you, you’re never going to get better, this is just how it is always going to be..."

LIES! And on and on he goes. He whispers them to us all day, even while we sleep.

He will stop at nothing to get us to exchange the truth of God for a lie. He fashions these idols with the very lures he knows will snag us. He will stop at nothing to turn our hearts from placing our trust in the One true God, our Lord and Savior. He will lie to us in our heartache and in our pain and despair and say, where is your God now.

But what He doesn’t know is that nothing can come between a Father who is absolutely crazy in love with His children. A Father who comes through and never abandons His children, yet rescues, fights for, advocates for, comforts, cries with, strengthens, breaks down and builds up. A Father who is faithful. Who even though the roads He leads us to walk are most of the time anything but safe and comfortable, that the journey, while it may seem painful at the time, is one marked out for us with the hands of a Loving Savior who says, "You will not have to walk a single step of this alone, I am with you."

They say to win a war you have to know your enemy.

I now know what hell looks like. Far too well.

There are moments of physical pain and anguish, of hopelessness and despair, moments I want nothing more than this all to be over and the pain to go away or to have my old body back that I literally feel what hell must be like.

I come face to face with the Enemy himself and the devil’s playground daily.

Face to face with the Enemy of our Souls who wants nothing more than to turn another heart from the one true God.

But, He is not God. He may be powerful, yet his character and his role is relegated to one function: to deceive.

To steal our joy, kill our hearts and destroy our faith.

To hold tightly to a distorted image of who God is and to get us to misunderstand His ways and His love for us, so we will become enslaved to the captivity our Savior has already freed us from.

But, the good news is, there is so much more to the story.

We find victory is ours. Not just in the end but now, in our present challenges and circumstances.

"Is He safe?"

"No. He is not safe. But He is good."

While I feel I have come face to face with the reality of hell everyday, simultaneously, I come face to face with glimpses of heaven. Face to face with entering into the presence of God in ways that seem to surpass all understanding and to which no words can try to describe.

In touch with the One whose love I can find my refuge and strength in, and One who alone knows the way that I take.

It is as if while I’ve been giving a new way to be human, I’ve also been given new eyes to see.

It is as if that which was once black and white is now in living color.

Vibrant.
Alive.

Exploding with the grandeur and beauty of God.

The little things in a day or a drive home from somewhere that normally I would overlook, but now see and taste as nothing more than the goodness and beauty of God.

He is everywhere.
Bursting forth life in every corner.

Glimpses and moments where I feel the tenderness of His heart melting mine. Holding me when I cry. There with me in those moments of defeat when I try and am unable to do that which was once easy. Rescuing my heart again and again from hardness, cynicism, giving up, getting bitter, losing hope, losing faith, losing love.

Yes, my Redeemer lives.

He is more alive and more present than ever.
He is more real and more powerful than ever.

His Spirit is speaking more clearer and louder than ever.
He is here with me in my moments of sorrow and grief, the same with me in the simple joys and delights a day can bring.

Yes, the Lord is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. My heart and my flesh may fail, but Lord you are my treasure. My great reward.

As the song sings, "and now just to know you more, has become my great reward.

May your kingdom come, may your will be done, all I want is to be Yours…"

-- THE DREAM OF HOPE, REMEMBERING REDEMPTION --

Early in the section entitled The Allure of Redemption, in a chapter called “The Dream of Hope,” Dan Allender shares a story about a couple, John and Maria who lost their four year old daughter to leukemia and their journey of healing, as they received little solace from their church community and were just urged to trust God and know He works all things for good and stop grieving, and in their pain are led to a support group with other parents who had lost children to cancer. They find solace, support and healing outside of the church, then being so moved by their experience, yearn to provide the same safe place for those suffering who also happen to be in the church:

“In an odd way, John and Maria began to taste new hope to be truly human—to feel, to doubt, to struggle, to see, ask, and knock without having to have an immediate answer or much of an answer at all.

They felt alive, raw, and full of sorrow, life, death, and hope in ways they had never known before. They began to see a change in their character and experience freedom to talk to others about their most cherished convictions in a winsome and compassionate way.

Hope focuses not on circumstances, but on Christ’s coming and the redemption of our character.

If my hope is centered on getting a new job or being healed from an illness, then I have given my heart to what is tangible and material. My heart will never become any bigger than that in which or in whom I hope.

But when my hope is centered on the coming redemption, I begin to take on his glory. As I become more and more molded by the far future, the now becomes both more bitter and sweet. Bitter in that it is not enough; sweet in its foretaste of what lies ahead.

There is an ancient language in us, a memory from Eden that resounds in us as we recall our past and read about the promises of our future. Hope is leaning into the unknown, risking our lives for a future that is promised in the Word and tasted a few hors d’oeuvres from our story…

We move into the future not with a map, a plan, or a clear structure, but with the whisper of a story that reminds us we will again see the goodness of God in the land of the living. The whisper is the voice of God’s Spirit reminding us of the cross and our individual moments of exodus.

The whisper is also our own voice that mimics the Spirit by calling our memories to the stage and seeing the theme of redemption time and time again in our lives. God reminds us, we replay the stories, and then we move into the future with the confidence that God is good."

Beautiful. “And I am confident of this, that I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living.”

That He alone is God; He alone is so, so incredibly good. Why is it that the same cup of suffering that is so bitter, is also so sweet? There are some things which even reason knows not of. Yet, we can place our entire being, our entire hope in this love that is unfailing, this love that is our hope, our strength and refuge, leading us through the tempest of the storms to still waters. Yes, God, you my Lord Almighty, are with me, though I cannot see, you know the way that I take and what every step of this road looks like, I will follow You.

“Lord, your love is enough, you will pull me through… I’m holding onto You.

Yes, your love is enough, I will follow you, I will follow You.”

Glimpses of the future, of the larger story God is telling…

Of the finiteness of this season…
That there will be an end. And a new beginning.

That there is hope now.

That my happiness is not contingent on my circumstances. That I can experience the fullness of life and learn what it means to be fully alive, fully human this season.

What does it look like to love? To embrace. To speak. To care. To serve. To fight. To struggle. To overcome. To cling to the One who calls and knows me more intimately than I know myself.

To live in the reality of His coming, His redemption, the redemptive movement of the present moment and the present circumstances, the hope for all that is to come that glorious day when He returns or calls me home, when we are united face to face.

Open arms and clinched fists

[From escape to embrace to escape … and back again.
Some of my lessons from last week.]


Ever notice how interesting it is when a revelation hits us? We feel this wave of, "Wow, so THAT'S what going on" and find ourselves both delighting in the moment of discovery yet at the same time wondering how we never saw it that way before.

It made so much sense. Freed me from much of the misery I was in the couple days leading up to this discovery. It was a revelation that brought not condemnation, but acceptance. Comfort. Relief. A tiny seed of clarity. One that brought peace and freedom. Freedom to accept and therefore be more tender with myself, freedom that allowed me to experience my Savior’s tenderness with me in that moment. One that assured me that I was normal. That this is okay. That I am right where I need to be. And that I am okay...

Towards the end of last week, I was having a conversation about the upcoming fall semester and what it will look like with me still on long-term medical leave.

I felt ambushed as soon as I left this conversation. It was the third or fourth I’ve had of its nature in the last month, some were emotional, others were not, but this conversation, one that I felt would be encouraging and freeing, only brought more grief to the surface.

Are you kidding me? I’ve already grieved all there was to grieve, I’ve embraced the situation, I’ve accepted it. In the last couple of weeks I’ve actually been able to see it from a new perspective, God was giving me a vision and excitement and hope in the midst of the uncertainty, why now is there more sorrow and grief rising to the table? More feelings for me to wrestle with and process.

I thought that part was over. I had accepted the reality that life with this illness is the new reality, it is the new normal. That now I was being invited into a journey of learning how to live my life with this, not to see how much of my old life this limits me from. I thought I was fully at peace...

After two days of not being able to escape the sadness and the weight and reality of my circumstances and how there was just another thing slipping through my fingers of what used to be a part of my life, that there was yet another death to grieve, that the hard parts are not over yet.

I will never forget the moments after that conversation. Everything felt so surreal. The way we were talking about the future. What this all means. The reality of how this changes what things look like for me in the next few months. I kept feeling like this isn’t real, we surely aren’t talking about me. I’ll be up and running in a few weeks, no really guys, it’s not worth all the trouble. I kept asking myself why was I struggling with this again, why when I had felt so much peace in embracing what life looks like now.

It was then that it hit me.

A single sentence that freed me from continuing to beat myself up for a supposed sign of weakness in finding more sorrow, more grief on this journey.

It was in a moment, as I was driving around, perplexed at my mix of seemingly conflicting emotions, that I realized...

the same hands that open willingly to embrace this situation are the exact same hands, that even at the exact same moment, can clench tightly in resistance.


That the same arms that open themselves to embrace that which has come its way are the same arms that can fight that which it has been given.

It isn’t either/or. But sometimes both.

That I could be both embracing and resisting this at the same time.

Both are normal. Both are human. I can accept how life looks, yet resist and fight and wish I could just get better and things get back to “normal.” Resisting with iron fists this intruder that is taking up permanent residence.

Yet that same cross that crucifies me is the same instrument that I treasure.

That cross that beckons me, that thorn in my flesh that I both cry out, “Father, please, if it is your will, please take this away from me,” in the same breath I declare, “Yet, into Your hands, I commit my Spirit, I am yours.”

Another revelation hit me after that. As I continued to drive around I heard just four words, “everything is a process.”

I heard those words ringing in my head in a voice so crystal clear. I asked myself, “huh?”

Then let it sink in, “No, everything is a process.”

Just as choosing to trust God is not a one-time commitment, but a decision that must be renewed daily, sometimes hourly, moment to moment, the same is true with embracing and accepting.

Just as my beloved Brennan Manning says in Ruthless Trust, it can be a very distinctive turning away and turning toward…

“The decisive (or what I call the second) conversion from mistrust to trust— is a conversion that must be renewed daily…”

We find the same reality with the conversion from escape to embrace. One that will not take place once, but many times, sometimes even several times in a day.

I may have made the decision a few weeks ago and signed up for this next leg of the journey, but that decision and choice to embrace and accept that which has come to me was both a moment AND a process.

A process of moments of grief and moments of victory. A process of embracing and resisting. Accepting and fighting, many times within the same moment. The fight for hope, truth and embracing is one I will never stop fighting. Same is true the fight against giving into resistance and hardening my heart.

Yes, it is possible, that the same arms that open to embrace, can also find themselves tightened with a death grip on one last shred of the illusion of control, and the comfort and security of what was nailed down, once known, once secure as it refuses to accept that which is being offered in the cup in front of them.

And we find, oddly enough, that though we are caught in this strange ambivalence, we are more alive than ever.

For as Dan Allender shares in The Healing Path,

"It is in the midst of our powerlessness that we are occasionally see the wild work of God.

Theologian Frederick Buechner wrote, ‘We are never more alive to life than when it hurts—more aware of both our own powerlessness to save ourselves and of at least the possibility of a power beyond ourselves to save us and heal us if we can only open ourselves to it.’ ”

Wow. So true. I remember the moment I realized I had no choice in deciding if I wanted this illness or not, and that I had a choice to make about how I was going to walk through this. I remember first realizing this and that I am utterly powerless to change my situation. Many times in my crying out to God and crying with my husband, one of the most devastating things about this whole thing is feeling powerless. I am doing everything they have told me. Nothing makes it better.

I’ve rested. I stayed at home on bed/home rest for two months. I took the medication, I did the exercises. I have done everything in my power and things have not gotten better.

I was left with a choice. To escape or embrace.

That the deeper reality of what I was being called to, more than merely following all the doctor’s orders so I would get better or figure out more of what’s going on, but I was being called to engage.

To be alive. To be present. To put my hope not in the short-sighted goal of getting better, but in the One who is with me on this journey, gently leading me by the hand.

I was, I am, being asked to engage. Open wide my heart. To feel the daily ups and downs. To cry. To hurt. To suffer. To live. To love, to serve. To embrace. To question. To wonder. To fight. To be in awe. To be grateful. To dig in deep. To know Him more. To grieve. To hope. To be vulnerable. To live. To be fully human, fully alive, regardless of the circumstances.

“The healing path does not lead directly to healing, but to engagement.”

What this sentence above tells me is that possibly, what matters far more is not the outcome or the results, or the assurance of when I’ll be better or what I have, but what matters far more, is my heart.

From the very beginning, what He cared most about was my heart. And I went through a searing examination of what my life is really about, realizing that I had not lost my life at all, yet was finding it. life in the most unexpected of places, and that what He cared about most, was what this journey would do to my heart.

So each day I enter the battle and fight with embrace and escape. Truth and lies. Acknowledging their presence and asking for the grace and help to moment to moment remember it is all a process, and that what matters far more is not merely arriving, but the condition of my heart, the journey further into the reality that our lives are not our own, and one that takes us deeper into the purposes of God and His heart for us.

Purposes and a love that ultimately transform us, as we learn through escape and embrace, how to rest in our powerlessness, lay down our firearms and dare to live loved.

Seasons change, my poor blog

Why I'm not able to blog as often and poor Abba's Child is feeling slightly neglected :(

Apart from the physical limitations that no longer allow me to be online to check email, facebook or blog as often, there is just so much going on in the here and now of daily life, processing has had to look slighly different for the time being. One of the things my counselor said to me in the beginning of getting sick, was that in crisis, the boundaries have to be different.

When you’re in crisis, or in our case, dealing with one person being ill for a period of time, because there are such high and low peaks of emotion, and the spiritual and physical battle also being all over the map, that the boundaries on processing are tighter.

This has been good but also hard. She meant this referring mostly with putting boundaries on who is safe to process the challenges of coping with a long-term illness and that not everyone is going to be able to understand or help. I put my own boundary on my blog because during this time dealing with the nature of what we’re going through, the majority of my processing is with my husband and of course God, and several friends and mentors within our community here.

I have found, for at least this stage in the journey, the internet isn’t an appropriate place for processing the myriad of raw emotions I can have in a day, until it is something that is at a lesser intensity because I have talked about it with people on the phone or face to face.

Face to face communication and support with those within our community is critical in this time, as well as talking to good friends who don’t live nearby. God has been so faithful to us both in this journey, providing us with His presence, providing us each other and our community here, we are definitely not alone.

My own boundary with my blog has always been to not share something I’m processing for the first time on there if it wasn’t something I had processed with someone face to face or planned on sharing.

This was for my own emotional well-being, to protect my heart, as so much can be misunderstood online and taken out of context, so I decided a few years ago that I would only share things that were no longer carrying intense emotions for me anymore. So nothing has really changed, it is just as we’re still in the midst of an intense and challenging season, the boundaries just have to look different.

But apart from that, one of the hardest things with being sick is I’ve realized more than just dealing with the everyday emotions of dealing with physical pain and limitations and being exhausted nearly all the time, some of the things that make me feel like “me” are things I’m now not able to do, two namely, dancing and writing in my blog!

Dancing is obvious why I can’t do that right now. But it’s something I grieve from time to time as its one of the ways I’ve expressed myself for years now, an outlet God gave me from the time I was a little girl. every week after watching So You Think I Can Dance, I usually come home all inspired and start choreographing dances that may never get viewed, but find so much joy in creating and dancing, a way my spirit and my soul are set free.

And with writing, I’m only able to get on the computer once, maybe twice a week now because it is one of the activities that can aggravate all the muscles and nerves in my neck. Which then makes my arms and legs start going crazy and the nerves acting up there. We’ve found a couple ways I can be on the computer comfortably now, but most of the time I lack the energy to even turn on the computer.

I expend so much mental, emotional and physical energy all day just trying to survive and manage the pain and fatigue and get through the day, let alone have the energy to get on here and check emails or go on facebook or write in my blog.

A lot of times I don’t have the energy to get online because I feel so behind on emails and relationships that aren’t here, and keeping in touch with people on facebook or posting wedding photos, or what have you, and simply lack the energy and emotional capacity to do much more than life going on here, let alone maintain life online as well.

So it can feel like one of my lifelines is being cut off! But, I know in reality, this is not the case, as I’ve filled up many journals with writing and processing, it is just a different form of a lifeline on here.

It is challenging cause it’s like I can choose to go on there, but I’m at the same time choosing to be in pain. Not fun.

We’re working on getting me this thing where I’ll talk and it will type in the computer, which would be a huge blessing.

But this is also a process. I’ve desired to write more on my blog things that have been appropriate to write, yet most days lack the energy/capacity as well.

This has just been a reality I’ve had to accept, that everything about what life looked like has nearly changed. I’m just not able to do or function fully as I once did, yet I am learning, as I’ve been calling it, my new way to be human. it is just hard that things that once were so easy, now most days are not even fathomable. But, I am hoping to find ways to be able to get on the computer and blog and do those activities that are life-giving to me and that make me feel more like “myself.”

One thing that Ben and I remind each other of a lot is that, this is just a season. This isn’t how things are always going to be. It is an incredibly difficult thing when one person in a marriage has been ill for a while. It places new strains and challenges on the relationship and the ways it has dramatically affected not just one, but both of our lifestyles. We constantly remind ourselves, when we’re wanting to give grace to one another, that the reality is, things are just really difficult right now, what is an honorable and realistic expectation for this or that, the truth is, we remind each other, things are not normal right now, but we are just in a hard season.

Yet there is no one I’d rather go through this with than Ben. We are truly best friends and soul mates. He is an incredible husband, a servant and a treasure through and through. He has never made me feel like a burden, he reminds me all the time that we are in this together, and sometimes, that’s all that I need to restore hope. That I will not have to walk alone, my God and Savior is here with me and He’s provided an amazing partner, lover and friend to go through the deserts and the valleys with. He is so faithful. He is so good.

Right now, I’m just grateful for the moments and the times like now, were I do have some energy left to get on here and wrestle with the thoughts I’m blogging about and enjoy doing something I don’t get to do a lot of write now. But I am hoping to find more ways to be able to write more on here in the future. I have no idea when I will be able to do things on here I enjoy doing, such as writing again or finishing remembering and reflecting on our wedding by continuing to post wedding photos, but that all is irrelevant now. For right now, in this moment, I am just grateful I was able to get on here tonight and write three posts! I’m simply trying to take it one day at a time and not let the fear of the future or the darkness of the past steal the joy of the present moment.

Love,

Avia,

Hebrew for, “her father is Lord”