Freedom of Spirit

For unclear reasons I’ve been battling fatigue issues more intensely and for a longer duration of days than I’m accustomed. This chronic fatigue slams a hammer on my depression buttons and I feel bits and pieces of myself break apart. It requires great effort to cling to the truth that I still have value and worth when I find myself struggling to do even the mundane daily tasks of life like unloading the dishwasher. The last few days I’ve been praying and meditating a little on the Lord’s Prayer. I found myself praying over and over for His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. I was thinking how in Heaven there are no battles with fatigue, depression, etc. and somehow I superimposed that into a hope for eventually none of these health struggles on earth. I realized how much I wanted to feel normal and healthy and how I had given almost no thought to whether or not God’s perfect will was for me to live right in the midst of the struggle. Then I read a Thomas a Kempis quote that spoke of “a pure and whole forsaking of ourselves and of our own will, that we might get freedom of spirit.” Light flooded into my soul and suddenly I understood that I was meant to submit my will of being desirous of good days and normalcy to the Lord of the universe who has perfect control over my body. He could, after all, heal whatever has been making me so fatigued and even though I knew somewhere inside that He has good reasons for allowing health issues, I’ve been fighting whatever those unknown reasons are. Freedom of spirit has come because of the death of the seed of my will and as Lilias Trotter wrote, now I wait “for it to heave its tombstone and come out into the light.” (From A Path Through Suffering, by Elisabeth Elliot, p.174, 1990)