Thanksliving::Day 26:the shortest path to intimacy with God...

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust - not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.

Brennan Manning

30 Days of Thanksliving - Day 26

Still Saturday::to rejoice in suffering...

What does it mean that because of Christ's death for us God will certainly with him graciously give us "all things"? It means he will give us all things that are good for us. All things that we really need in order to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8.29). All things we need in order to attain everlasting joy.

It's the same as the other biblical promise: "My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19). This promise is clarified in the preceding words: "In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:12-13).

It says we can do "all things" through Christ. But notice "all things" includes "hungering" and "needing." God will meet every real need, including the ability to rejoice in suffering when many felt needs do not get met.

John Piper,  The Passion of Jesus Christ,  p. 53

{Between February 12th and April 16th (the Wednesday before Easter), I am reading and discussing John Piper's The Passion of Jesus Christ - Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die with a group of friends. From now through Easter, my Still Saturday quotes and I {LOVE} Sunday scriptures will come from my readings in this book by Piper, and the photos might simply be a few favorites from those I've taken during the week.}

To be useful in affliction...

The chronic pain of RAD, with it's unpredictable tidal waves of intensity, has opened my eyes to the deceptive power of addiction - and for that I am grateful. It's all too easy to condemn what I do not understand or cannot see.

God has graced me with a cheerful disposition; I was shocked when my doctor once asked if I was depressed. Chronic pain does that to you, you know, she added, and I had to admit that she was right. Not that I was clinically or chronically depressed, but that there have been moments when unrelenting pain wears down my resolve and dark clouds circle overhead. I begin adding up the lifestyle changes I've been forced to accept, the ways my disability has affected my relationships with those I love, and a way out begins to look attractive. Consequences are overshadowed by the promise of relief. Only  the sovereign grace of God, the will to persevere, to lean into Christ and push through pain, keeps me from falling into a trap where the grasp of addiction would be beyond my physical or emotional strength to escape.

So I throw no stones. No. Stones. I understand your pain. Take my hand and we'll hold onto Christ, for though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

I was grieved for my friend, a young mother and sister in Christ, when she messaged me last week to say she's been diagnosed with RAD, but she was relieved to know that someone understands what she is going through and encouraged that I will walk through this with her. To know that my suffering is useful - that though I'm not able to do what I've done in the past - there is a purpose that brings me joy.

I thought of this yesterday as I read Piper's No Blessing Like Health — With the Exception of Sickness. Piper identifies suffering as something that in God's sovereignty pastors must endure to be useful to their people, but I believe it's true for each of us - and to be useful in my affliction is grace. It brings joy and cheerfulness that strengthens my resolve and keeps those dark clouds away.  

{Photos: this week from my swing under the sweetgum trees in my Pollywog Creek backyard}

A heaven-hearted hope...

It's my favorite word in medicine, JR tells me after I describe the ongoing pain in my gut that landed me in the hospital two months ago and the grumblings the pain appears to produce. Borborygmus, he continues. It's onomatopoetic, don't you think - the medical term for intestinal grumblings? Borborygmus. He repeats, drawing out the bor bory, slow and deep.

JR is a PA in my gastroenterologist's office, and his little English lesson in the middle of my visit is amusing and makes me laugh, but it's not at all funny to hear that there are no easy solutions to the adhesions that they are sure are the source of my pain. Unless they cause a blockage, surgery to remove or cut them simply results in more adhesions.

The rheumatologist calls before my appointment last week. My hemoglobin levels keep dropping and he wants me to get more blood work before I see him. I'm not surprised. I can't remember being so fatigued as I've been the past few months. My iron levels are good. B-12, too. It's the anemia of chronic illness, he tells me. Iron supplements, a change in diet, or B-12 shots won't help, so he refers me to a hematologist for procrit injections. I worked for a hematologist once, so I know how this goes, and I resolve to refuse a bone marrow aspiration, should he suggest it.

I read that treating the chronic illness more aggressively is the best treatment for this kind of anemia, but my options are few. The rheumatologist offers the only biologic he believes won't make my lungs worse, but it comes with the rare risk of a fatal, untreatable brain infection. The risks are low, he tells me, but that doesn't mean anything if you are one of the ones that get it. 

I'm between a rock and a hard place, I tell friends, and that I think I'll stay on the Rock for now. I mean it. I'm not afraid of medicine. I'm an RN, a nurse practitioner even - once upon a time. For years I've willingly followed the suggestions of those in the medical profession I respect. But this? I pray and pray, but I don't have a peace about this medicine's risk, rare that it is, and I don't dare move forward unless or until I do.

The endocrinologist's office calls to remind me that I'm due for a sonogram to check on those nodules in my thyroid. The cyst on my cheek is getting larger and I wonder if I should have the surgeon who removed the cyst on my neck last summer take a look at this one before it gets any larger. And while I'm at it, I need to see the podiatrist about the corn on the bottom of my left foot that's causing me more and more pain. And I laugh again, thinking of JR's onomatopoeia and my mother's growing older ain't for sissies and the merry heart that's good medicine.

But what also comes to my mind is this...

Affliction is what fuels the furnace of this heaven-hearted hope. People whose lives are unscathed by affliction have a less energetic hope. Oh, they are glad to know they are going to heaven. But suffering makes the Christian experience more than signing the dotted line on an eternal health-care contract. Suffering turns our heart toward the future, like a mother turning the face of her child, insisting “Look this way!” Once heaven has our attention, a fervent anticipation for God’s ultimate reality – appearing with Him in glory – begins to glow, making everything earthly pale in comparison. Earth’s pain keeps crushing our hopes, reminding us this world can never satisfy; only heaven can. And every time we begin to nestle too comfortably on this planet, God cracks open the locks of the dam to allow an ice-cold splash of suffering to wake us from our spiritual slumber. 

Suffering keeps swelling our feet so that earth’s shoes won’t fit.  

~ Joni Eareckson Tada

I believe it. I truly do. And I'm OK with it, too. If I had a choice, I wouldn't choose these momentary afflictions that are swelling my feet anymore than Joni would choose paralysis and breast cancer, but to have that heaven-hearted hope and a fervent anticipation for God's ultimate reality makes it all OK.

{Photos: This week on Pollywog Creek - muscovy duck on the pond, a pair of grey squirrels in the sweetgum tree, and a fox squirrel out on a limb}

Having "been in the battle"...

"The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest." Job 30:17

{repost from the fall of 2010 - because it's important to remember}

It's a rare Christian who does not walk through what feels like a "Job season" - when pain and suffering appears to press in on every side.

When my husband was staring down unemployment six years ago, after farming citrus for nearly twenty-five years, it was no coincidence that he was able to join Emily and I in our morning Bible study just as we began reading the Book of Job.

The tragedies Job endured were far worse than any we have ever experienced (and Lord willing, we never will), putting our own pitiful sufferings into perspective, but we related to him none-the-less - momentarily wondering what we did to deserve such a fate while being misunderstood and poorly comforted by those we thought were friends.

I've recently picked up Amy Carmichael's Rose from Brier, and while I'm too early in the reading to recommend it as yet, I've appreciated Amy's perspective. It is through her own lens of chronic pain and suffering that she offers hope and encouragement - comforting others with the comfort with which she has been comforted. A kind and loving word from any dear soul is a gift, but it is most treasured and encouraging from those who have walked the same path of suffering.

"For no man can tell what in that combat attends us but he that hath been in the battle himself" ~ John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress

There's a tension in that for me. I don't like dwelling on past or current woundedness, pain or suffering, and I'm quite sure that others would quickly weary of hearing of them, as well...but if words of hope are to carry much weight, it's important to know that I've "been in the battle".

Physical pain is no stranger. I've been assaulted, in a car accident, broken my leg, had several surgeries - including emergency surgery for a perforated colon, and experience cycles of pain from crohn's disease flares.

For several weeks I've experienced some of the worst joint pains that I can remember - not just my knees, but my shoulders, hands and feet. Getting out of bed, in and out of the car, up and down stairs, dressing and undressing, sitting, standing, walking - there's very little that I am able to do at the moment without pain, and yet it has been a sweet and precious season of walking in the truth that "the joy of the Lord is my strength" - a powerful reality that I could only know in a season of weakness.

How has the Lord been with you in your battle that you might offer hope and comfort to others?  I'd really love to know.

{Photos} pumpkins on my 2011 kitchen counter 

The pathway of love...

He did not die to make this life easy for us or prosperous. He died to remove every obstacle to our everlasting joy in making much of him. And he calls us to follow him in his sufferings because this life of joyful suffering for Jesus’ sake (Matt. 5:12) shows that he is more valuable than all the earthly rewards that the world lives for (Matt. 13:44; 6:19-20). If you follow Jesus only because he makes life easy now, it will look to the world as though you really love what they love, and Jesus just happens to provide it for you. But if you suffer with Jesus in the pathway of love because he is your supreme treasure, then it will be apparent to the world that your heart is set on a different fortune than theirs. This is why Jesus demands that we deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him.  ~ John Piper, What Jesus Demands from the World, p. 71 (emphasis mine) 

It's all I have time for today...and it's all that is really needed, and it reminds me of our beautiful sister Sara - whose heart was clearly set on Jesus, the Supreme Treasure.

HT-John Knight {Works of God}

{Photo} what else - my backyard swing