Satisfied

John Piper says that his life quote is, “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied with Him.” I’ve been thinking about this quote and evaluating my own satisfaction in Christ. I’ve been realizing I have not been content with my current situation in life and consequently I’ve been saddened that God cannot be more glorified in me. During the months of dealing with Aplastic Anemia I trusted Him completely. I felt slain, but at the same time I was at peace in His presence. Once I became aware I was healing from this blood disease I think I expected life to resume as normal, at least normal in terms of health. I did not expect the body trauma of chemotherapy and radiation to leave me with the scar of chronic fatigue, nor the steroid treatment to weaken me and leave me with the pain of a bone disease. I was surprised to find that the chronic fatigue negatively affected my depression and the dark cloud it cast over my life. It’s left me with a sense of loss over my health and the things I am able to do. To be honest, the ongoing fatigue, pain, worsening depression, and the consequential losses have left me feeling unsatisfied with my life. In the realm of expectations I had for my days, none of these remotely fit in. I truly want God to be most glorified in me, so another process of surrendering my desires begins. As I render my desires, leaving them in the hands of my loving Father, I discover a greater degree of satisfaction in Him and a place where all things are possible. It is in this place I’m reminded and encouraged by Jesus’ words when He said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16.33).

Kiev

Ah, Kiev. The sights and sounds of being in a foreign land did my heart good. Memories of being overseas prior to illness filled my soul and I was happy. Everything from sidewalk vendors with little old Ukrainian ladies selling brightly colored fruits and vegetables to the smell of cat urine in apartment hallways made my heart smile. They were all a part of embracing a life overseas. The negative was that my knee started hurting after only short amounts of walking and we walked everywhere. There was one day we walked and walked throughout the day and tears threatened as I went from happiness to being overseas to sadness over my current state and lamented over the old me that could walk around carefree. I would look around me and see thousands of people walking around without a thought for their legs and for a moment, all I could see was the unfairness of it all. I wanted healing from this more than healing from my blood disease. If God had not healed me from my blood disease I’d be in Heaven, but to walk around in pain all the time and feel the weight of holding people up…in the midst of pain it all seemed too overwhelming. Later, when we returned to where we were staying and I had time to be quiet before the Lord I was encouraged by Psalm 121.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains –
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of Heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip –
He who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, He who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you –
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm-
He will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

I have been blessed the past two years by attending a free online conference during National Chronic Invisible Illness Week presented by Rest Ministies. If you or anyone you know struggles with a chronic illness of any kind, encourage them to check out this conference. There are a variety of topics and lots of helpful resources and information. Check them out!

For those of you waiting for an update from my Ukraine trip, it's coming. I've had some heavy chronic fatigue days since returning and a couple of other issues, but should post something very soon.

Ukraine Bound

I haven’t posted in awhile. I was on some medication for several weeks that made my fatigue even more intense. I seemed to barely function over the last couple of months. I have recently switched meds and feel much more normal now. Praise the Lord!

Tomorrow I fly to Kiev, Ukraine to spend about a month with my husband doing ministry. My husband works with a ministry that trains missionaries to the former Soviet Union in the Russian language so they’ll be more effective in their ministry. The ministry is going over to Kiev this summer to assist missionaries who are currently struggling with the language. My husband and I are responsible for the logistics of this.

Over the last several months I have struggled with going. I am an unofficial member of the ministry. I’m on disability. I struggle with walking long distances and standing for long periods of time because of my bad bones. I wrestle with chronic fatigue. Who in their right mind would want me to be part of the team? I spent two years as an overseas missionary many years ago and then I was healthy. I could zip here and there and not even think about it. It’s been almost 6 years since I got sick and I haven’t been overseas since. It’s scary. What if my fatigue and pain issues keep me from being useful? This trip is a little bit of a test to see how I can cope with the rigors of overseas travel. What if I fail miserably?

My challenge has been to be convinced that it is God who has called me. He is in His right mind and He will be faithful to what He has called. Of course I can go through the logical reasons, but to be truly convinced in my soul that He will work His good purposes through me, a physically weaker version of my old self is the question. The apostle Paul’s words have come with new meaning as I think of my physical state when he wrote, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty…I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.” (Phil. 4:12, 13)

So I’m now looking forward to seeing how He’ll be strong in my weakness. I’m praying for Him to use me to be a blessing, in whatever way He sees fit. He hasn’t led me to go along with my husband for no reason. I may not have a direct purpose, but thanks to God, I now have vision for Him to use one even such as I.

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)

BLOG Carnival

Chronic Illness and Pain Support is a BLOG by the founder of Rest Ministries, Lisa Copen. I've been honored by having one of my postings featured on the website as part of her BLOG Carnival. I've been so encouraged by the resources and connections I've made through these sites. If you or a friend struggles with any form of mental and/or physical chronic illness, I'd encourage you to check out the resources on these sites.

Little Troubles

My last few weeks have been marked by an increase in fatigue. I’m not really sure why, but it has discouraged me somewhat. Spring has sprung in my corner of the world and yet my body feels like hibernating. Yesterday I was longing for a hammock or some sort of outdoor reclining chair in which I could nap and still somehow enjoy the glory of a spring afternoon. It saddened me to “waste” the afternoon sleeping in my bed, but fatigue held mastery over my body and I had to relent. My husband even offered a Sunday afternoon trip out to a beautiful spot by a lake in a nearby town, but my body wouldn’t have it.

“These little troubles (which are really so transitory) are winning for us a permanent, glorious, and solid reward out of all proportion to our pain. For we are looking all the time not at the visible things but at the invisible. The visible are transitory: it is the invisible things that are really permanent” (II Corinthians 4:17-18 JBP).

It’s not always wanting to enjoy a spring day that feels hampered by my fatigue; there are countless things I want to do or feel I need to do that often stare me in the face. Once again I’m reminded that these things are “little troubles”. Some days I’m thoroughly discouraged by this transitory fatigue, but even if it lasts a lifetime, it’s still transitory and today I get to choose to “not lose heart” (II Cor. 4:16). I possess the very Spirit of God as an invisible thing, “a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (II Cor. 5:5). I long for those days on days like today, when I’m absent from the body, but present with the Lord (II Cor. 5:7). How thankful I am that in the meantime God is inwardly renewing me day by day with the invisible things (II Cor. 4:16).