I have been overwhelmed by comments and discussion about my last few entries. To be perfectly honest, I just can't grasp that anyone would even bother reading my blog because I do it mostly for theraputic reasons. It's where I try and piece together my journey and see how it all fits together as I scroll back over my entries. It's kind of like a virtual diary for me. No big surprise - I wasn't very consistent at making entries in my diary back in the day either!
Admittedly, I am NOT a blog stalker and do not understand the blogstalkers of the world. I will from time to time glance at some friend's blogs to see what's going on in their life, but there is only one blog I read with any regularity and it's the blog of a young 20something year old single girl living in Uganda who is adopting and fostering so many parentless children and meeting the physical needs of people in a way that brings tears to my eyes and joy to my heart at the same time. In all honesty, the only reason I even somewhat blogstalk her is because I am absolutely fascinated, humbled and in awe of her. As I read the open book of her life, my mind wanders what would have become of me if I had only dared to be as brave, strong, bold, resolved and faithful when I was her age...
And I think that's why the comments have created such a discomforting stir in me. Don't worry if you said something to me...I was in no way offended, but I was certainly caught off guard. People have commented most often on my courage or my strength or my faith in the midst of such uncertainty. I was a young 20something when all of that happened, occurring from the time I was 21 until I was 23, but never once do I remember feeling courageous or strong or even faithful...I still don't feel that way.
If you think I was/am courageous, you are mistaken. Fear, pain, danger and uncertainty loomed over me then and loom over me still, but somehow I press on. I don't ever remember gathering myself and pulling myself together with the resolve to face that which weighed heavy upon me. I can not remember a time in which I have had to muster up the courage to face life. I do not know how I faced the "stuff" and I don't know how I face the "stuff" now except to say that it is often over before I am consciously aware that it has begun. That is not to say that it is fast, painless, or fleeting. It is rarely any of those. It is, however, almost as if I go on autopilot. I heard a sermon again recently on the 23rd Psalm. In truth, I believe He causes me to rest when the situation would be too overwhelming for me and I believe He often distracts me with that which is greater. I believe that at times He has pressed me down to squeeze out the courage He has placed in me...and I believe it is His, not mine.
If you think I was/am strong, you are mistaken. Now, I will not lie here and be falsely humble. If you have met me, you would certainly agree that I have a naturally strong personality and a pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality. It's who I am and how I was raised. My favorite thing to tell the teenagers when Danny was a youth minister and they were whining was, "Take a double dose of suck it up." Around our house, you better either take medicine and stop complaining or be sick enough to go to the doctor. While that's funny and often entertaining, I don't think that's the type of strength most people were referring to when they commented about how strong I was to go through all of my health issues at that time. I think they were referring to the face I was able to put on during that time...and all the times since. My life can be crumbling around me but most never know it. Much to my own detriment, I am a steel magnolia. I rarely cry, rarely get my feelings hurt, and rarely show genuine emotion. (Sidenote - if others are crying, i can't seem to keep from crying. I think this is God's sense of humor!) Many have mistaken the hardness that often flows out of me as strength but it isn't, it is weakness of the worst kind. It is the kind of weakness that allows me to know others deeply and invest wholeheartedly in their life but will not allow others to do the same for me. It is strength generated from fear...fear of being known, fear of being weak, fear of needing someone else, fear of not being sufficient. It's a fear as old as sin itself and I often find myself much like Adam and Eve, hiding from the very One who created me, knows me and loves me regardless. While I was sick, I composed a little tune I would sing when I couldn't sleep or was in pain or just listless. I still find myself singing it from time to time. It goes like this:
Carry me Father, far from this place.
I need to feel Your loving arms,
be surrounded by your grace.
Carry me Father for I am so weak.
This world is overwhelming me and
I don't know what words to speak
So carry me.
If you think I had/have an incredible, unwaivering faith, you are mistaken. Just as Paul was a pharisee's pharisee, I am a planners' planner. Planners often lack one thing and that is faith. Why? Because you can't plan around faith. Faith doesn't make sense. It is irrational, unpredictable, absurd, illogical, uncontrollable and dependent on someone other than you. God may ask this or that of you. God may throw this or that at you. God may allow this or that to happen to you. It rarely makes sense to you at the time and is almost never something you laid out in your 5 or 10 year plan. It's not on a calendar or to do list. But the incredible thing about God is that HE lays it out for you before you even need it. The reality is that I chose faith long before I knew I would really need it. When the time came and everything just came crumbling around me, I didn't scramble for my footing. I stood on what I had known. Just like the apostles asked in Luke 17:5, I asked God to increase my faith to walk through that time (and many times since) and He did so. The faith came from Him and Him alone. As a result, I have said that I did not ask God the big looming question of "why" during that time. My husband certainly asked it, as did my parents, my brother, my in-laws and close friends. I didn't, which is completely uncharacteristic of me. I am by nature inquisitive, skeptical, and cynical. I should have asked it, but didn't. To be frank, I believe God kept me from it. I believe that God did not allow my heart and mind to wander down the self-lamenting path of "why" because He knew that it would ultimately destroy me from the inside. He knew it would eat away at my soul, distance my spirit, consume my mind and harden my heart. He knew it would distance me from the one thing that I needed, Him. It is not that I haven't asked "why" during other difficulties of this life before or since then because I have many times over. The difference I notice is that God quickly shifts my "whys" into other questions. How are you using this to change me? What do you want me to learn from this? When will I get the chance to walk alongside someone else as they face this? Where will this new journey lead? See, God knows I'm a planner...and He knows I don't need to be. My health was just the first thing that God had to use to remind me that all my plans are nothing but useless schemes if they aren't His plans and that His plans are indescribably better than any I could ever generate. He's used other things since then that I thought I could plan for and control. The most recent and probably most difficult faith step has been giving up the stability of our finances and trusting Him...it's just another reminder that HE gives me the faith to walk the plans HE has for me.
Here's the other side of all of that. If my illness had occurred just a few years earlier while I was in high school, I can guarantee you that I would have worked hard to convince you that I was full of courage and strength and faith. I would have worked hard to convince you that I had handled it all on my own and that I would continue to handle it on my own. I wanted credit for everything I did (and often for things I didn't do.) That's who I was back then...and that's who I don't want to be now.
You see, a BIG step in the process of becoming not me is realizing and admitting that I am not courageous or strong or faithful.
The process of becoming not me is all about recognizing that God is all of those things and so much more...and any glimmer of that seen in me is really HIM, not me.
There was a popular song during my college (illness) years. The verse asked for More of You and less of me. Instead of singing More of You and less of me, my heart desires to cry All of YOU and none of me...Lord, give me the courage, strength and faith to do so!
