Buried

I’ve been slowly working my way through Elisabeth Elliot’s book, A Path Through Suffering. There are many lessons for me to grapple with in this book, but today I’m considering the idea that sometimes death is only part of the final step in surrender. Elizabeth shares the story of Lilias Trotter, the first missionary to Algiers. After seven years of enduring the harsh climate, Lilias returned to England utterly exhausted. “The doctor said her nerves and heart were worn by the strain of the battle and by the climate.” In addition to the physical sufferings, she had experienced firsthand the spiritual oppression of living in a spiritually dark land. What was her response?

While in the autumn months of England she noticed acorns falling on the road and “thought how they would never come to anything because they were only lying on the ground, not in it.” “She wrote of ‘a lovely sense of what it meant to be ‘buried with Christ’- not only ‘dead’ but ‘buried,’ put to silence in the grave; the ‘I can’t’ and the ‘I can,’ put to silence side by side in the stillness of ‘a grave beside Him’ with God’s seal on the stone, and His watch set that nothing but the risen life of Jesus may come forth.’” So Lilias renewed her commitment and took the words of John 12:24 to heart: “In truth, in very truth I tell you, a grain of wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls into the ground and dies; but if it dies, it bears a rich harvest.”

So today, and probably for awhile, I’ll be contemplating just how to bury those “I can” and “I can’t” statements. In this new life of limitations there is great temptation to focus on all I can’t do and lament over what I used to be able to do. I look at the immensity of various tasks and wonder how I can effectively take part.

I am greatly encouraged by Lilias’ story, and I hope you will be too. She returned to Algiers, with all her limitations and with the enormity of the task before her and when she returned she experienced discouragement upon discouragement. “She was strengthened by the thought of Moses’ unanswered prayer to enter the Promised Land. Centuries later he was allowed to stand on the mountain there with Jesus Himself. And Elijah, because he was denied his request to die, experienced the glory of the fiery chariot when it was God’s time for him to go.” So too am I strengthened this day with the power of prayer that surpasses the “bounds of physical possibility,” just as the risen life of Christ breaks through those who are buried with Him.

(With exception to the quote from John 12:24, all quotes are taken from A Path Through Suffering: Discovering the Relationship Between God’s Mercy and Our Pain, Elisabeth Elliot Gren, Servant Publications, 1990.)

Unbeliever

One of the things I’ve been learning about sickness is that it can have the affect of making you an unbeliever in yourself. Seemingly unending days of not feeling like yourself can wear you down and things like vision and dreams give the impression of something that was part of a former life. To do anything beyond existing can seem utterly exhausting. I don’t think those of us who struggle with physical limitations are alone in this. We all experience twists and turns in life that lead us down an unexpected road. But what about our dreams? Did we get too old for them? Do they seem unreachable? Does it seem pointless to dream? Maybe I have to reinvent my dreams because of my limitations, but so what? At least I’m moving forward, even if only in my thinking.

Thinking about dreams and vision has forced me to think about how I see God’s Hand in my life. I’ve realized that I’ve been acting contrary to what I believe. Although I do believe God sometimes orchestrates things in such a way as to make the direction obvious, I also believe that He is no Great Puppeteer, pulling our strings to get us to move where He wants. But this is not the way I’ve been behaving. I’ve acted as if I can’t make a move unless I’ve clearly heard Him speak, “This is the way; walk ye in it.” This is not to discount times of waiting upon Him for that clear answer. Sometimes He asks us to wait. In fact, He often asks us to wait on Him. Yet how often am I personally in a stalemate because I’ve used waiting on God as an excuse when in reality I’m just too chicken to make a move? Don’t I trust God enough that when I live a life submitted to Him He is perfectly able and big enough to re-direct me if I start down an unwise path? Limitations may be the reason for this perverted belief that I’m useless because I cannot do the things I used to do or dreams are a forgotten art of the past, but He is not an unbeliever in me and so I must lay down my fear, since this is not the spirit He’s given me, take a deep breath, and move forward.

Hard Pause

When I started this BLOG I thought I was ready for the adventure. It was a goal to do something with writing. I’m learning that part of the adventure of goal making doesn’t just require making reachable goals, but leaving room for failure or hard pauses. The unexpected happens - More sickness; more setbacks; depression. I was tempted to delete my two entries or start a new BLOG because of the long absence, but I decided that it was important for me to openly admit to myself (and the world?) that I can keep trying on a thing even after a long and unintended sabbatical. I do not need to hide the fact that I “failed”.

I’ve never been good at failures. It’s a battle not to equate any kind of failure with viewing myself as a failure. It’s just how I grew up. But now this seems liberating to me…to allow myself a “failure”, accept the hard pause for what it was and not a reflection of me, and move on.

So, in all honesty, I don’t know where this thing will lead. I really don’t even know what specifically I’m writing about. All I know is that I’m jumping off the cliff of writing in obedience to my Lord that “this is the time” and I fully expect Him to not only catch me, but to help me soar. I welcome you on the journey with me to see where this adventure leads.