I feel joy. My heart is so happy. I am experiencing a deep sense of contentment and new intimacy with the Lord. I sense His presence and experience His love. I have learned what it means to trust Him with everything, even the small details. The result is a deepening love relationship with Him. I thought I already had a love and trust relationship based on the growth I had experienced and described in my previous blog entries. It is true that I was growing in my faith and learning to trust. However, the Lord had more to teach me. I have been reading over my prayer journals from the past three years. I am struck by the number of times I wrote about wanting a deeper intimacy with the Lord, asking Him to take me to the next level. Specifically, in January of 2013, I asked that He help me to see Him in all aspects of my day. In April 2014 I asked Him to help me to turn to Him first in times of distress. I asked to be so in tune with Him that joy will override my pain. Another time I asked to know His love and comfort. There were many more similar requests. As is often the case with me, the answers to my prayers would be accessed through increased pain. I recently reached a new level of challenge with Lyme disease that brought me more despair and anxiety than I had previously experienced. It was precisely then that I began to see that my prayers were being answered.
The fall and winter of 2014 was a very difficult time for me. Once again, my husband Tim was dangerously ill with septicemia. His knee replacement had become infected and the bacteria was raging through his body. The next few months were challenging as he recovered and endured 2 more surgeries to address the infection in his knee. I was his caregiver, and the demands on my already weakened body seemed more than I could handle. Each footstep was met with sharp pain starting in my feet, then coursing through my body. The chronic fatigue syndrome was so profound that just lifting my arms was too much. When I experience a time of physical and emotional challenge, my immune system weakens and the Lyme disease flourishes. I become weak and ill. That's when I begin to feel anxiety and fear. For reasons I did not understand at the time, I did not feel the Lord's closeness like I did in similar situations in the past. I never doubted that He was there, but I felt something was missing in me. I felt that my prayers were weak, only being able to say to the Lord, "Help me." I found fault with myself because I could not pray more effectively or eloquently. Over a year later, the Holy Spirit has given me some insight into this situation.
As the months went by, my health started to improve a bit. By the next fall, I was doing well enough that I could dance with my son at his wedding. That meant so much to me. It was a true miracle. It had been years since I could do something like that. Then, suddenly, inexplicably, the pain and illness came back, but this time much worse than I had ever experienced before. My feet could not tolerate touch of any kind. A new symptom also emerged, too. I had unrelenting pain in the pelvic floor muscles. Those are the ones we sit on when we ride a bike. The pain is internal as well as external. It is sharp, deep ,persistent, burning pain. Sitting is almost impossible. Once again, my world was shrinking. I was already limited as to what I could do. Now I could hardly leave the house. I couldn't stand, walk, or sit without increased pain. Lying down hurt. There was nowhere to go to get away from it. No medication prescribed to me helped. I fell into despair. I feared for my future. Was I always going to be like this? How can I do it? I have a grandson now who is the light of my life. I have a granddaughter on the way. Would I be able to hold them? Play with them? I felt I had to solve this problem quickly. I went from doctor to doctor, enduring grueling and painful diagnostic testing. Again, as I had done in he past, I felt I had to take charge of this illness and find the right doctor, the right cure. It hadn't helped then, so why was I trying again?
It was then that the light went on. My many prayers for a closeness with the Lord had been heard and the eyes of my heart were opening. I came to a realization that I had to take my life back spiritually and emotionally. I needed to recognize God's gifts and be thankful for them every minute in order to defeat my anxious thoughts. I needed to marinate in thoughts of His blessings, and praise Him always. I knew this before, but not at this new level. I needed to decide whether or not I truly believe that, through Jesus, the enemy's hold on my body and emotions has been defeated. Did I trust God enough to place my painful body in His hands and let Him be my healer? I said I did, but what did my actions show? I kept going to doctors, trying new medicines, trying to fix myself. I realized that I did not really trust the Lord enough to let go. There is nothing wrong with going to doctors or taking medicine. But, in my case the Lord was asking, " Do you trust me fully?" It was then that I realized that I could let go. His mercy, love, compassion and power were more effective than any pill I had taken. I began to go to Him for relief every single time the pain, fatigue, or fear got to be too much. Sometime that was every five minutes. Sometimes I asked that I could have relief long enough to sit through a meal. I asked for the ability to hold my grandson for a few minutes. Or to drive the car, go to church. I had to take each thought captive over and over in order not to succumb to fear and defeat. The Lord is my healer. He knows every cell in my body. He knows which ones are not working properly. Only He can touch my body and calm down my wayward pain signals. This is what I do now. I pray as each pain is felt, and as each fear arises. I am sustained that way, experiencing enough relief that I can be consumed by joy instead.
So my "Help me" prayers last year were certainly heard and answered. I thought that two words were not enough, however, the minute they were uttered the Lord put in place all the events that would need to happen in order for me to recognize His answer. There was a moment when I understood what He wanted me to know. It was a few months ago, when my grandson was learning to sit. He was on the floor with his toys when something seemed to be distressing him. For the first time ever, he lifted his eyes and met mine, held up his little arms and said "uh". He looked to me in his distress, using the only language he knew to say that he recognized me as his help, completely trusting that I would hold him, protect him, and love him. In that moment, my feelings of love for this child were too intense for words, and I am only human. How much more does God, who IS love, feel when I, His child, trust Him enough to lift my eyes and say, "help me?"
I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to
me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of
the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he
set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm
place to stand. He gave me a new song in
my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear and put their trust in
the Lord. Psalm 40:1-3
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