A month previous I had ended up in Urgent Care with severe shoulder pain and numbness and shooting pains down my arm. I was diagnosed with a rotator cuff injury and tendonitis and also booked for a neurology appointment in June. I had had a business trip booked to BC with a ten day visit planned on the end of it. This trip is one I look forward to every year. It includes my favorite places with some of my favorite people on the planet. It is my sanity at the end of a long, hard winter.
In one visit with a doctor and a regime of rest and inactivity, the trip became an impossibility.
Our budget would not cover the air fare ( travel expenses were covered through my work), and my body prevented travel.
Sad.
Heartbreaking.
Depressing.
Why?
That's always the question isn't it?
I needed that trip.
I wanted the relief at the end of winter.
I hungered for the contact with my girls.
My friends.
My family.
The landscape.
The solitude.
Taken.
Stolen.
Prevented.
That's how I felt.
Bewildered.
Tears flooded my eyes this morning as I called my niece in Vancouver...one whom I would be seeing the first of this week if all had gone according to plan. Even now my throat burns and I swallow painfully. I know the feeling of her hugs around my neck. I can see her beautiful freckles and hear her laugh..I remember drawing swirly pictures with her last year..the drawing is still magnetized to my fridge..a silent testimony of hours spent in joyful creativity... my chest hurts worse than my back today.
...but truth comes...because I want it...I long for it...I live for it... and God knows I need it...
Truth blazes through...seeps in...inhabits...even the disappointment...the sense of loss..
Truth doesn't remove it... the pain...it surpasses it.
It becomes more important...than the pain.
Truth is....Truth.
It bends to no man.
This is Truth:
God is good.
He is what I need.
He provides.
Gives.
Bestows.
Blesses.
I need that perspective.
I want it.
I CRAVE it.
His eyes. His view.
...Or accepting my inability to see clearly, blind trust in His perfect nature.
Attributing to Him all glory, honor, dominion and power.
Sometimes I want to understand more than I want Him.
Sometimes I want to know...more than I trust His knowledge.
I want.
I want??
What?
Or...
Who?
Today....I will trust...more than ever.
...the Truth is..that's all there is.
I will surrender my limited reasoning to His unlimited perspective...and proclaim:
I am blessed.
I know I am.
His hands are full when He reaches out to me.
His gifts are perfectly suited, perfectly ordained.
I want to see and accept what He is offering..instead of looking at what isn't...
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.
Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together!I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,
for those who fear him have no lack!
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
What man is there who desires life
and loves many days, that he may see good?
Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
and his ears toward their cry.
The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
He keeps all his bones;
not one of them is broken.
Affliction will slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.~~ Psalm 34 (ESV)
Today, amidst the tears, and the pain..and disappointment...
I can say: It is WELL with my soul.
I am Blessed. I will Bless.
Bless His Holy Name.
