Tick.
*
Tock.
*
Tick.
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Tock.
Time that once moved so fast has slowed down, and I hear the hands of the clock as they move around from one number to the next. They seem to match the rhythm of my beating heart as it thumps.
I am still living, blood still flowing, my breath still moves in and out, in and out, unmeasured and unconscious. Yet, I seem to watch the movements of my life as if I am watching myself on the big screen, a montage of moments the directors have decided to slow down for dramatic effect. Only this is the speed of my every day, ordinary, regular life.
This is the perpetual weight of waiting. Each second feels as long as a day. Because once the waiting is over, perhaps my life won’t go on the same path as it would have before. It will be something different. Perhaps, I will be something different.
Some days I am strong and invincible because the gospel says I am more than a conqueror because of the LOVE of Christ which is always and forever with me.
Some days I am weak because the gospel doesn’t promise that LOVE will not allow me hard things. Jesus went through hard things for me and I am indebted to hard things in return. I am a living sacrifice, good days and bad.
Some days I remember of all the saints who stand beside me in prayer. Some days I feel all alone, the weight of waiting, the weight of hard diagnoses too heavy to bear all alone. Will I too learn to sit by a pool and wait for an angel to stir the waters in order to be healed, forgotten and alone? Or will sit forgotten and alone and then, be seen by the Savior? Healed in only the way He does.
Soon I will be given the results of a blood test that could determine the type of future God has allowed for me. It seems waiting to receive the news of hope or of a different type of hope feels as if a separate life is being lived, one where I battle over truth and hope and who God says He is in the face of adversity, and I don’t know how to pray.
So much of my life God has said NO. I don’t know how to hope that He may say, “YES, I permit you NOT to have this disease.” I know I don’t have a faith big enough, and I need my Savior to be big enough because I can’t.
How I react to this news matters. Because it shows the world what I believe about a God I say I love so much.
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My heart keeps saying, “How Long, O Lord?” This health crisis is, in some ways, the smallest of all the circumstances weighing me down. Others in my life I’ve spent years waiting to see small changes and yet, I still wait. So somewhere, somehow, while we wait, time goes back to normal speed, and life resumes even as I wait.
What is man that God is mindful of Him?
Will I or won’t I be able to shop for groceries or drive or live to see grandchildren or be able to play with them? Will growth occur in those I pray for? How will healing take place? These giants in my land are trivial to Him.
I don’t know if my faith is a smooth stone ready to knock the giant down. I don’t know if I am enough to knock the giants down. That’s the wrestling. I must keep a steady faith. I must believe. But no matter what, how can my faith heal me? Semantics I know. But I know that even if my faith is small, he is growing it through these challenges. He is helping me to believe. He is with me even on the days I feel alone and scared, fragile and small.
What is it we don’t understand about the Love of God? Much! It is deeper and wider and higher and longer than we know. It took Jesus to the Cross, but it raised Him once again.
And so, if my trials knock me down, I too, will be raised to life again. Undefeated. Secure, and all because of Love, a love that lifts me.
Jamie, i am praying for God’s Grace to be evident in your life, today, tomorrow, everyday (it already is visible and beautifully written). Thank you for sharing this poignant post. i know He has blessed you through pain and joy. i pray that the joy overflow and the pain dry down to a trickle.i will not pray all problems disappear, since that would unfortunately eliminate growth. God Bless You!