Month: July 2016

I’ve had this post in my spirit for a minute, so here we go….
I’ve got a degree in both psychology and behavioral science. I got them in hope that they would help me figure out myself. But I’ve found that sometimes they help and usually they don’t. I’ve learned that psychology can’t explain God. Mark and Matthew record an event where the disciples and Jesus are in a storm. The storm is raging all around them, but they are basically ok. They got a bit wet and were knocked around and they panicked. They panicked because although they were only a little wet they were looking around the boat at the ferocity of the storm. I tend to do that too, all the time. I hear and see what the doctors say, how my medical record reads and I focus on that. What if for a few moments I took the time to realize that yes, I’m hurting more than comfortable and yes I’ve heard all the reports, but I am not being consumed!!! ( I just took myself in!!!) I am being held in the safest place possible. If I would quit looking around me at what could be and stay focused on the fact that I m being sustained, kept, comforted and blessed, I might realize it doesn’t matter which storm is coming, going or raging; God’s got me.

That used to be my personal mantra until I started thinking perhaps God considered it a challenge.
There is a 14 year old child that has decided to die because she has a disease that causes chronic pain and renders her immobile from the neck down. My first thought was “oh wow “. My second thought was that we have failed this up and coming generation so badly. We’ve coddled and bubble wrapped them so tightly in our efforts not to be our parents, that we’ve given them no coping abilities . I’ve never seen such vicious bullying and great numbers of suicide in my life.
But my next thought, as I began to pray for her, was that I wish I could speak into her life. I’ve learned that nothing raises up a spirit of rebellion like platitudes and obvious untruths. You simply cannot come at me will cliches and well intended words when I’m in the grips of a crisis. So I’ve learned to temper my conversations with “have you considered?”. I’ve found that does several things at once; it at least gets me listened to, doesn’t get what I have to Sa automatically rejected and it inserts an opinion that the person might not be able to see depending on the intensity of their situation.
All that being said, I wish I could teach her to categorize and compartmentalize her pain; a very neat trick for anyone with chronic pain. I wish we could discuss the possibility of a purpose to her life. Beyond the obvious and just to imagine what the other side of the situation looks like. Lastly, I’d love to surround her with the music that keeps me pushing, trying and pressing past wanting to give up.
God is good all the time, but truthfully, there are times and situations where we feel He’s good to everyone but us. Today’s music doesn’t always reflect what to do when you are feeling like that. These are the times I have to dust off my spirituals and press and keen my way to remembering He will never leave nor forsake me, despite if it feels He has done just that.

So today is my one month amputee anniversary. There are several things I must say before I continue.
1. I am the most passive pacifist you’ll ever meet. I genuinely have to figure out where my stores of energy are going. I do not wonder why I have a small circle of friends.
2. I think I lack the fight or light response. I can’t imagine a situation where me fighting is an option. I like to think I have a flight or jet setting.
All that being said, I made reservations for a pity party of one today. I had dominoes on speed dial, crackers for the munchies and gummy worms to round it out. But just like for Elijah, God shut this party DOWN. He gave me a restorative nap for sleep, a bubble of giggles and smiles for my demeanor and a whisper that He is Jehovah My Sustainer. Not overly pleased with all this, but it’s not like I had a choice. I am exactly one month from the loss of half of my left leg and the doctors are already gearing me up for prosthetic consults. Glory! Hallelujah! If I had two feet I’d dance.(corny amputee humor). God is amazing and a half because I was already picking out who I wanted Him to send me for my heavenly transfer (this is in NO way a suicidal ideation!), but I was pooped. Tired of physical ailments, tired of not getting what I thought I was working for and just tired.
God keeps me when I don’t want to be kept.
I encourage others when it seems like I can’t even encourage myself.
And….the Joy of the Lord really is my Strength, because I know personally, without it, there’d be no me.

I haven’t cried in 3 years. Yet I find my face wet after a painful and restless night. I find myself wishing for people long gone; not exactly sure of what their response would be. Sure, the love would be evident, but would I get support or old school “I told you so”. Feeling a bit like Job, I may not know where God is, but I’m sure He knows where I am. The Bible says we won’t get more than we can bear, I for one would like a meeting to redefine the definition of how much I can bear is. So I cry while I smile and answer fine to how I’m doing. Truth? I take 3 different kinds of pills to make dialysis bearable. I feel 2 steps from a breakdown because reality is too much. The beach, cemetery and food no longer relieve the pressure and I feel like I’m twisting in the winds of ideas, theology and my reality.
Y’all not ready for this jelly, these waters run deeper than even I knew.

Have you ever spent so much time being amazing because you represent God and you really do never know who’s watching your faith walk; that you forget to be human? Human, where you remember that you are still scared of the dark. Human, where 2 major surgeries in less than a month still hurts and you keep pleading the blood that you don’t get addicted to those painkillers that make everything alright.
Human, where you actually indulge in the grief and mourn not only the life you had but also the one you kept trying to get God to put his blessings on😏(anyone got any Ishmael plans, I do, I mean did)
We all know to pray without ceasing and I thank God for my personal prayer warriors, But. That’s it, just but. But I find myself whispering the Word to myself, tryna back up off that ledge of almost insane because it’s too much. I don’t want to get cocky because God and I did it before, but, truth? I feel one bad medical report from looney tunes. There’s an old song that asks “whose report will you believe?” Well that’s a no brainer! But! God isn’t giving reports, He is whispering “Trust Me”. But God, you know I got for real trust issues. You know I got control issues. You know I’m without a dream or a vision, is this how I’m to perish?
Just thinking out loud…..