Fast Forward to Today: Just a quick break in the narrative

On days like today I must take a moment and fast forward my story to the events of the last few days.  One reason is very selfish.  It is therapeutic for me to be open about my inner workings.  By vocalizing the mental and physical struggles to others it robs them of their power to drag me into the pit of darkness.  Nothing good grows in the darkness, and the best way to fight the moldy nastiness that grows there is to speak it into the light.  Another reason is perhaps a bit less self-serving.   I feel the need to share what is going on in my body and soul as of late because I believe there may be one of you that can benefit personally from hearing that someone else struggles in ways that may seem all too familiar to you.  Often times when we find ourselves nursing our own personal darkness it is easy to believe the lie of our enemy telling us we are alone in our hurt.  But we are not alone.  Shadrach had Meshach and Abednego, and they all three had another with them in the fire.  In the same way we have each other as we face the furnace, and God is never far away.

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Psalm 43:5

I can’t tell you how many days I wake up and go to bed with this thought of David running through my mind.  I have no real reason to be downcast.  I have been redeemed in this life and the next because of the goodness of my savior, Jesus.  I have been restored to the pulpit, I am driving myself, taking care of my daily needs, and surrounded with loving friends and family.

And yet, the residual brokenness, pain, hurt, and darkness still reside in the shallow recesses of my heart.  Anger seems to always brew just below the surface of my skin just waiting on the slightest knick to come spewing out on those around me.  My marriage will never be what it was before meningitis.  I will never be able to parent the way that I did before my illness.  My friendships and relationships have been transformed, sometimes into something I don’t even recognize.  These metamorphoses aren’t, for the most part, inherently bad or good.  They just are.  Learning to live within the new normal of life I have been given at times is easy and at times maddeningly difficult.  There are days where I am filled with great joy as I recall the progress that has been made and all that God has done, and if I am honest, there are even more nights where I mourn all that is different and will never be the same.

I find myself watching people walk around on sidewalks and down hallways, bounding up stairs and running in and out of stores and envying the ease with which I used to do these same things.  I wonder if they realize how blessed they are to have such freedoms.  A freedom that they have taken for granted since they were toddlers learning to run away from their parents.  A freedom that I took for granted for 40 years of my life.  In those moments where I find myself green with envy and even angry at what has been taken from me, I am reminded of just exactly what God has brought me through and the freedoms that he has restored (and continues to restore) to me every single day.

And the refrain echos in the recesses of my soul:  Why so downcast?

I have found that if I will turn my mind back to Christ in the middle of my despair, He has a way of pulling me out of the pit, just like David refrained:

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Psalm 103:2-5

For some unknown reason the last few weeks have been very hard.  I had been feeling weak, less able, and descending into a familiar pit.  Angry, bitter, guilty, shameful.   You know… the norm.

Today, Jodi had made a list of things for me to do around the house to help out.  I am obviously limited in what I am able to accomplish and what I can do is a struggle, and  these limitations attack my masculinity unfairly mocking my weaknesses.  With great effort I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, took the garbage out to the cans and picked up as much as I could.  I watched as Jodi made her way through our living room and up the stairs where she began a conversation with Abbi in her room.  I could hear them laughing and enjoying one another’s company, and just like hundreds of times in the last few years— I felt the sorrow of being left out.  At first I felt the familiar twinge of sadness— sadness because I hadn’t been upstairs in my home in years.  My daughter’s rooms were filled with their childhood bedroom furniture and a few remnants of their younger days the last time I laid my own eyes on them.  The images of their childhood have since been replaced with larger beds, and jewelry boxes and make-up vanities.  Emma had gone from a 15 year old softball loving pitcher to a 19 year old college student no longer darkening the door of her bedroom on a regular basis.  Abbi Jo had moved on from her American Girl dolls and now embraced fully her love of theater and fashion and all things young woman.  She was finishing up her sophomore year of high school and inching closer and closer to moving out of my home like her elder sister.  

But today instead of allowing myself to sink into familiar despair, I felt a tug in the direction of progress.  I had walked up a number of stairs as a part of my physical therapy, and even made my way up 4 or 5 stairs with a little bit of help.  Could I make it up the long flight of 14 stairs to the second floor of our house?  Would I be strong enough to do it on my own?  Would I lay eyes on my daughter’s room for the first time in over 4 years?

I wheeled my chair over to the base of the stairs and grabbed my cane.  We have a railing on one side of the steps, but I would likely need something to steady my unsupported side.  One step, two steps, onward and upward I made my way toward the voices of my girls upstairs.  It was much easier than I anticipated.  I was just a few steps from the summit when Jodi noticed me and announced they had a visitor.  I made it to the top and then then hobbled with her help into her room where I sat down in a chair and took it all in for the first time in years.  The little girl’s room I remember has been replaced by the room of a pretty amazing young woman.  It warmed my heart to see it all.  It warmed my heart to remember the last time I had been up these stairs I had been carried by my best friend because I couldn’t stand and today, because of God’s grace I walked up under my own power.  

Why are you downcast?  Put your hope in God.  He hears you.  He is good.  And He gives you just what you need, at just the right moment.

It is so easy to find yourself filled with grief rather than grace.  Sorrow rather than hope.  I have found myself with those circumstances too many times, and no doubt as a result of my humanity will find myself there again.  But no matter how many times I find myself in the fire, God is never far.  No matter how dark your night gets, the light of Christ is awaiting to shine at just the right moment.  Giving just enough light for the next step… or the next 14 steps in my case.  

And we will praise Him.  Our savior and our God.