I woke up this morning, still with the bronchitis that won’t die, but oddly enough that feels more normal than anything else that has happened lately. Every winter without fail at some point, it will happen. My lungs rebel and I get the respiratory crud. I decided this morning that I was not going to let #thisstupidheart (yup it’s a hashtag now) dictate my life. I had given it too much power in the last few weeks.
Why would God have me buy a house that I love so much just kill me off a couple of months later? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. (Of course I know it does happen). Anyway, I tried to get my life together. I cleaned my kitchen and did some laundry and then embarked on the quest to tackle the list of Christmas presents I needed to buy. I’ve decided to embrace the fact that it’s not my best work and it will be what it will be. Hey, at least I didn’t go overboard this year. It’s the little things.
Halfway down the block, I got a call from the doctors office that my heart monitor did not show anything too bad, nothing that we didn’t know about, and we’re just going to adopt a “wait and see” if it happens again attitude. No life altering news. The shoe didn’t drop.
What happened was scary and I hope that it doesn’t happen again. I also don’t want to jump into years of tests that say nothing again. It’s expensive and frustrating and hard. This heart is fickle and easily irritated, which is kind of funny because it’s probably metaphorically all those things as well.
As I was driving home I was thinking. I do some of my best thinking while driving probably because I can’t do other things. The song “Even If” came on my playlist and I realized that those were the words to the faith I don’t understand. The faith I’ve been trying to navigate, unsuccessfully, for years.
But I have questions. Why did we have to do this again?
But the answer is probably clearer than I like. God’s answer is most likely, “because you’re still doing what you’ve always done. You’re still not trusting that I am in control.”
It’s hard. I don’t know how to have faith that no matter what happens it’ll all work out. I wait for the axe to fall, the bottom to drop out, the other shoe to drop, because I know that it does. I’ve lived through that. It’s a hard thing to reconcile. When it feels like your world came crashing down as a 5 year old, it’s hard to believe it will ever go correctly again.
I don’t know how to have faith like that. I don’t know how to have faith that no matter what happens, “it works for good”.
As I read Remember God and read as she questioned “is God kind?” I know he’s good. And I cannot say that he’s not kind, I just don’t know that he always is kind because unkind things happen. I get it intellectually, but I continue to wrestle with the faith to work it out. I hope to get there, but I just don’t know where this path leads.
And I am still trying to figure out how to give up control, and failing as you can see. I want to be a person of great faith but I’m trying to figure out how to be that. I don’t always know how to trust people, so it’s hard to know how to trust a God that doesn’t always do what I think he should. Is that something one shouldn’t say? I don’t know. But it’s something I feel so I am not ashamed to say it.
And so I continue to wrestle, to try to figure out faith, to grasp onto the knowledge that God has to be kind, even when it doesn’t feel like it, I continue to navigate through the unkind things that do happen to myself and others.
And I still feel relieved but a little overly dramatic sometimes when “this too has passed” and everything turns out to be nothing much and I have to say “false alarm. I’m fine.” All I know is I hope there are no more devils around the corner but I know there probably will be.
I have high hopes for 2019 in spite of the turns of 2018. I hope that it’ll bring more times of serving instead of needing to be served. I hope that I can give more to my people than I take. I hope that it’ll bring lessons that don’t feel so hard to learn. I hope that I figure out this faith thing that I’ve been wrestling with for so long. And I hope I really know that God is always kind because something tells me he is, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
I hope that whenever the end does come that I’ll hear “well done” and not “get over here; we need to talk”. I’m not there but I hope to head in the right direction and quit taking detours. I want my faith to not be based on circumstances. I want to learn to be a good kid to a Father who has to be so frustrated with me failing yet again. I want all the things.
They say sometimes you win some/ Sometimes you lose some/And right now, right now I’m losing bad
I’ve stood on this stage night after night/Reminding the broken it’ll be alright/But right now, oh right now I just can’t
It’s easy to sing/When there’s nothing to bring me down/But what will I say/When I’m held to the flame/Like I am right now
I know You’re able and I know You can/Save through the fire with Your mighty hand/But even if You don’t/My hope is You alone
They say it only takes a little faith/To move a mountain/Well good thing/A little faith is all I have, right now
But God, when You choose/To leave mountains unmovable/Oh give me the strength to be able to sing/It is well with my soul
I know You’re able and I know You can/Save through the fire with Your mighty hand/But even if You don’t/My hope is You alone/I know the sorrow, and I know the hurt/Would all go away if You’d just say the word/But even if You don’t/My hope is You alone
You’ve been faithful, You’ve been good/All of my days/Jesus, I will cling to You/Come what may
‘Cause I know You’re able/I know You can/I know You’re able and I know You can/Save through the fire with Your mighty hand/But even if You don’t/My hope is You alone
I know the sorrow, I know the hurt/Would all go away if You’d just say the word/But even if You don’t/My hope is You alone
It is well with my soul
It is well, it is well with my soul
Even If by Mercy Me
This Season.... 
This is indeed beautiful! ✨
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I think many of us have been there in regards to asking the very same questions you’ve asked – and have asked them many times to ourselves and to God. When trials are just so hard and no relief of our continued prayers seem to occur, those seem to be the times when those questions run in mind, over and over again. So when relief actually does finally come years down the road, oh, how it is like a very heavy and dark cloud that had finally moved from surrounding and weighing down on me! So how much greater God’s provision and love becomes real, especially in the miraculous manner in which the immense relief had come. So keep up the faith, Friend. Seeking to have “great faith” is good, but we only need a mustard seed’s amount. Don’t forget, God loves you not for (blank), but just because you’re you – His child. May God bless you and Merry Christmas!
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I want to send something awe-inspiring, something to encourage you, but I’m going to write the first thing that popped into my mind, something very practical. My mom used to suffer with chronic bronchitis every winter, sometimes 2-3 times per season. I used to find her in the stores while we were Christmas shopping by listening to her “bark”–she sounded like a beagle. It was AWFUL. She did a lung cleanse with natural herbs and, I’m not kidding, did not contract bronchitis for YEARS. I could no longer find her in the stores 🙂 by that awful cough.
On another note, my family was sick last year. It started with my youngest in September and rolled right on through the rest of my family well into the new year; I’m talking February/March. We were awake night after night due to coughs that wouldn’t quit. Two rounds of antibiotic and almost every herb imaginable would not quench it. I cried, begged, and pleaded to know avail. I’m not going to pretend to understand that season because I don’t. My takeaway: it got my back raised against the devil. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Jesus came to give us life and life more ABUNDANTLY. That I don’t know how to receive His gifts yet, not His fault. But I am willing to learn and He is gently leading.
God’s not frustrated with you. He loves you. He proved that by giving a sinful world His only begotten Son. Everything ugly was nailed to the cross that day. It’s time now to live in the beauty and glory of His resurrection power.
A very Merry, Miraculous Christmas to you and a New Year filled with revelation and His grace.
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