the storms

I was wondering yesterday at what point can you declare an entire year bad. We are into our last third of 2013 and I am ready to call it. I have had more than enough life this year.

As I pondered whether I can declare the state of the entire year in September, Jesus tendered my heart with one more display of His presence. He instantly set me straight.

He said you are measuring this all wrong. You don't see what I see. But you could, if you adjust your gaze. So I looked a little more clearly at my life...I looked through eyes of faith and measured my year by the things that matter to Jesus.

Circumstances have been difficult, but spiritual growth, love, ministry, friendships and faith have a richness that they have never had before.

At the gentle nudging of the Spirit, I was reminded that I have spent more time in His Word this year, my knowledge and faith have been stretched and grown, my dependence on and surrender to Him has been easier and more freeing. I saw a marriage taken to new depths and daily displaying the love of Christ. I see children growing more godly each day and a heart of mission and justice with a call to ministry blossoming. I see ministry growing in new ways with partnerships between churches to grow the kingdom. I smile at the great joy of pouring our lives into the next generation in a very intentional way. He pointed out friendships that have reconnected or strengthened as iron sharpens iron and deep calls to deep. He showed me a deeply content heart...a satisfied soul.

Jesus said from where I stand you have had an amazing year.

He lead me in His Word to two random verses in unfamiliar places to assure me that we are walking these difficult circumstances together and to challenge a heart that questions the way.

His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. Nahum 1:3b

Wherever the Spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went. Ezekiel 1:12b

I have been reading through the prophets this summer. Nahum reminded me that God walks us into the storm. His way travels through the whirlwinds in our lives. But we have so much hope knowing that the storm clouds of life are under His feet. The are but dust He kicks around. He is sovereign over all the whirlwinds and storms. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that He has plans for our welfare...our welfare through the eyes of Jesus has always been a spiritual condition. James 1:2-4 tells us that trials are for our mature faith...so consider them joy. His way - the plans He has to lead us to mature faith - is in whirlwind and storm, but He is sovereign.

Ezekiel is seeing heaven (which honestly sounds a bit scary with all those creatures and all those eyes), anyway, in heaven they follow the Spirit, not turning as they go. If I understand that He is working out mature faith in me and know His heart is for me (Hosea 2:19-20), will I follow the Spirit wherever He goes without turning as I go? He challenges me to follow Him on the way He has for me. Trusting Him.

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. - Isaiah 43:1-3

How can I not?

another peek into my life with fibromyalgia

 Troy found this for me on a blog called Fibro Relief. It is completely, scary accurate.

I’m not taking credit for this letter, I did not write it, I found it online and sent it to everyone I know to help them understand what I was going through. I wish I knew who did write it, I would love to give them the credit here on my blog! (If anyone knows, please let me know and I’ll be more than happy to post the credit!)

A LETTER FROM FIBROMYALGIA

Dear Miserable Human Being,

Hi, my name is Fibromyalgia, and I’m an invisible chronic illness. I am now ‘velcroed’ to you for life. Others around you can’t see me or hear me, but YOUR body feels me. I can attack you anywhere and anyway I please. I can cause severe pain, or if I am in a good mood, I can just cause you to ache all over.

Remember when you and Energy ran around together and had fun? I took Energy from you and gave you Exhaustion. Just try to have fun now! I also took Good Sleep from you and in its place gave you Fibro Fog (a.k.a.) Brain Fog. I can make you tremble internally or make you feel cold or hot when everyone else feels normal. Oh yeah, I can make you feel anxious or depressed, too. If you have something planned, or are looking forward to a great day, I can take that away too. You didn’t ask for me. I chose you for various reasons: that virus you had that you never quite recovered from, or that car accident, or childbirth, the death of a loved one, or maybe it was those years of abuse and trauma. Well, anyway, I’m here to stay! I hear you’re going to see a doctor who can get rid of me. I’m ‘ROFL’ (rolling on the floor laughing)! Just try! You will have to go to many, many doctors until you find one who can help you effectively. In fact, you’ll see many doctors who tell you ‘it’s all in your head’ (or some version of that). If you do find a doctor willing to treat this ‘non-disease’, you will be put on pain pills, sleeping pills, and energy pills. You will be told you are suffering from anxiety or depression, given a TENS unit, told if you just sleep and exercise properly, I will go away. You’ll be told to think positively, poked, prodded, and most of all, you will not be taken seriously when you cry to the doctor how debilitating life is for you every single day!

Your family, friends, and coworkers will all listen to you until they just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and that I’m a debilitating disease. Some of them will say things like “Oh, you’re just having a bad day”, or “Well, remember, you can’t expect to do the things you used to do 20 years ago,” not hearing that you said “20 DAYS ago”! Some will just start talking behind your back, while you slowly feel that you are losing your dignity, trying to make them understand, especially when you are in the middle of a conversation with a ‘normal’ person, and can’t remember what you were going to say next!

In closing, you’ve probably figured out that the ONLY place you will get any real support and understanding in dealing with me is with Other People with Fibromyalgia! They are the only ones that will understand your complaints of unrelenting pain, insomnia, fibro fog, the inability to perform the everyday tasks that ‘normal people’ take for granted.

Remember, I’m stuck to you like Velcro – and I expect we’ll be together for the rest of your life.

Have a nice day!! (ROFL),

10 best things about Fibromyalgia

(from Zazzle.com amazing website of super cool products)

1. I save money on magazines. With brain fog, I can’t remember what I just read!
2. I am a cheap date. No alcohol, no dessert and I still feel drunk or hungover.
3. On ‘good day’s I feel wonderful. Other people need a much better day to feel that way.
4. I am easy to find…I’m either at the Dr’s office or at home.
5. I never have to make my bed because I’ll probably be right back in it.
6. I have acquired a great lounging/sleeping wardbrobe. I rarely get dressed as nobody ever sees me.
7. Disequilibrium saves money on amusement parks. I get the same sensations every time I stand up!
8. I feel smarter than my Doctors…all they say is ‘I don’t know’
9. With short-term memory impairment I can hide my own Easter eggs and Christmas presents.

a Jesus girl vs the environment

James tells us in the first verse of the third chapter of his epistle Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. That is pretty serious stuff. What James doesn't mention about teaching others is often you end up learning more than your students. If you take your calling seriously and seek the Lord in your teaching, preparing becomes a time of great discovery...solidifying things you already believe or searching the heart of God on things you have never really thought or cared about before. The latter describes my experience this week.

Currently, I have the great joy of co-leading a group of amazing Jesus girls through The 7 Experiment by Jen Hatmaker. I have loved it. The basic premise of the book is that we live lives of excess that rob us of Jesus...seeing Him, experiencing Him, trusting Him, knowing Him. So, we are practicing a fast of sorts in seven areas of our lives to create margin for God.

I knew going into it the fast with least impact for me would be waste week, which is all about the environment. I would say that I went into the study this week fairly open minded. We are probably an average family with regards to our treatment of the environment. We recycle cans and bottles, use the energy saver cycle on the dishwasher and try to remember to turn off the water while we are brushing our teeth. I think those are good things, but I am certainly not trying to save the earth or anything. In the study, Jen makes "creation care" an issue of stewardship and obedience unto the Lord. I am not buying it. And while I wasn't tracking with Jen's argument, I had never really searched out the issue in Scripture for myself.

Most of my disagreement with Jen's assertion that this is an issue of obedience or stewardship was her
basis that we will run out of the gifts of the earth. I can't argue whether or not we have a consumption problem; we do (that's pretty much the reason we are doing 7...). My problem became the idea that we can do anything that will keep God from being true to His Word. In Matthew 6, Jesus tell us:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

God will provide for our needs. He always will. I can't change that. America's vast over consumption can't change that.  God sent manna from heaven and the rocks burst forth water at His command. I think we are good. He will take care of us. Today has too much trouble of it's own to take on tomorrow's worries. (Side note - notice Who claims responsibility for fully caring for the earth. Jesus pretty much says that is the Father's job.)

Also, we have to remember that saving the earth is contrary to how we know the story ends. My fabulous co-leader, Tammy, showed me this quote from GotQuestions?org yesterday:

There is nothing wrong with Christians being involved in a conscious effort to appreciate and even preserve God’s wonderful creation. But any effort directed at preserving the planet forever runs counter to God's revealed plan. He tells us in 2 Peter 3:10 that at the end of the age, the earth and all He has created will be destroyed with fire. The physical, natural earth in its present form, along with the entire universe, will be consumed, and God will create a "new heaven and a new earth" (2 Peter 3:13;Revelation 21:1)

(remember that last part - I will get back to it in a minute) God has a plan that includes blowing this place up in a way that will make Hollywood green (ha!) with envy. Any efforts on our part to save the earth will wind up all being for naught.

We are told that the earth is a gift from God in Psalm 115:15. This is where we must consider the word or idea of steward. I believe inherent in the word steward is an expectation of return. This belief comes from the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. In Jesus' story, a master hands out talents (coins) to three servants and then goes away on business. When the master returns, he asks about the talents. Two of the servants have doubled what they were given. They are called good and faithful. The third servant buried his money. He preserved it. The master is furious with him. God is our master, and He expects a kingdom return on what He invests in us. I consider a kingdom return an increase in breadth or depth of the kingdom of God, either you have added numbers or you have grown those who are already His. If you choose to spend your efforts preserving what you have been given or chasing after a cause with no kingdom return, I fear a furious Master. I saw a tweet today that said even good things can become bad things when they take the place of the best. I feel like this is where we can get stuck. Reducing, recycling and reusing are good things but without considering how they increase the kingdom, they are not God's best. Now if you can make saving the earth into a ministry, PLEASE DO! Jen gives a great example in 7 (the book, not the workbook) of a group in Austin who use gardening to provide food and money for homeless men and women willing to work in the gardens. Kingdom return.

Let's consider God's words to Adam about the garden, which is where obedience becomes relevant. In Genesis 2:15, we are told that God placed Adam in the garden to work it, which is a good thing. What's interesting is His actual instructions to Adam recorded in Scripture are this:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28 

See that word subdue? It is an interesting Hebrew word that means to tread down, to conquer, subjugate, violate, bring into bondage or force. Actually, you probably have heard the word before. It's kabash (like he put the kabash on that idea). Interesting. Scripture never tells us to take care of the earth the way we might assume. Obviously, the original language here doesn't. I don't even see creation care as consistent with God's character. He pretty much uses nature at will and often in response to the crown of His creation...us. I think of the story of Jonah where God creates a tree to give Jonah shade, but then Jonah is a brat so God kills the tree. Maybe creation care is something we should do, but it is not something we must do.

Having said all of that, I decided I really just needed to listen to Jesus on the subject (unfortunately, I went this route after our Bible study discussion on the matter - lesson learned). I spent some time in prayer during a sleepless night asking the Lord to explain His heart on this issue to me because, honestly, I never want to be right more than I want to God's. I am willing to concede if He stands on the other side of an issue. Humility is not fun, but it is my friend.

So my thoughts...which I believe have been refined by God.

Sin is bigger than we understand. In the garden, when God created everything and called it good, it was.
And then we sinned. We call chapter 3 in Genesis the Fall...which is not from Scripture but, technically, the term refers to falling from the goodness God created us and the earth with. Something broke between God and His creation when we sinned. After the Fall, apart from Christ there is no good in us. That is true of the earth as well. We see in Genesis 3:17 the earth being cursed because of our sin. The beautiful thing about brokenness is and always will be Christ. He restores brokenness. In Colossians 1, we are told Jesus reconciles all things unto Himself, which means He restores our goodness and the perfection of the garden. Praise God, for us that happens when we come into relationship with Him and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Unfortunately for the earth, until there is no more sin, it will remain cursed. The good news is there will come a time when righteousness will reign. God will create a new heavens and a new earth. 2 Peter 3:13 says  But based on His promise, we wait for the new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness will dwell. Jesus will reconcile the earth to Himself by making a new creation just like He does with us when we become Christ's. The truth is...we can't save the earth anymore than we can save ourselves.

Please recycle. It's just nice. Conserving and preserving are good things to do...but remember, as with most things, God has this one under control. So no worries.

trials of many kinds...

In May, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

The benefit of hindsight tells me that I have been dealing with symptoms for as many as three years or more...not understanding that seemingly unrelated annoyances, like hip pain or anxiety, were all pointing in the same direction. In January, Troy and I decided it was time to figure out what was going on...my symptoms were increasing in severity and I kept telling Troy I think there is something wrong with me. Those four months were spent in doctor's offices, sometimes having as many as four appointments in a week. They were also spent in uncertainty. It was a beautiful opportunity to exercise my faith...to consider a new kind of trial joy.

Did you know that nearly ten million Americans have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia? Chances are I am not the only one you know suffering from what is described in Medical News Today as a severely debilitating affliction characterized by widespread deep tissue pain, tenderness in the hands and feet, fatigue, sleep disorders and cognitive decline.

It has been an interesting challenge to learn how to live with an illness that affects nearly every part of my life and even more challenging to explain it.

I get tired now doing the smallest of tasks. Sometimes getting ready for my day so exhausts me that I need a nap. Earlier this week, talking on the phone for no more than 5 minutes drained all the energy from my body. I get frustrated at times when standing and singing in worship require more energy than I have.

Pain is a constant companion. I seem to rotate through seasons with which body part will hurt. Currently, my arms and hands seem to be most affected.

Most troubling is the cognitive difficulties that I experience. Anxiety was one of my earliest symptoms increasing in severity as time went on. I often have problems thinking clearly especially the earlier in the morning or later in the evening it becomes. I sometimes get words jumbled or misspeak...even stutter. Conversations are difficult because I can forget what we are discussing in the middle of a sentence...or not be able to follow the flow a conversation takes. Unfortunately, this makes me even more introverted than I already am...which is is almost hard to imagine.

God has chosen to make Himself completely known on my journey thus far, and I am so grateful.

God, in His sweet sovereignty, moved me into the perfect job at just the right moment. It is part time...which is certainly all I could handle. My coworkers are absolutely wonderful. My tasks are challenging and fun. My job is such a joy.

Jesus prepared Troy's heart. My husband has filled every gap that my limitations create in our home with a servant's heart and loving attitude. He is so supportive and kind. His tenderness is clearly God given and his willingness to serve me in my illness blesses me daily.

God is teaching my children about His purposes and plans for our lives and how they aren't always what we might choose, but they are always good.

Jesus is showing me His faithfulness and teaching me how precious and necessary it is to depend on Him. There have been nights when I have driven to Bible study in tears because I cannot rub two coherent thoughts together begging Him to lead through me. He always does. He shows me that His grace really is sufficient and He has provided every bit of mercy I will need...His thoughts are better than mine any day.

Jesus meets me in the middle of the night when I cannot sleep but know my body needs to rest. We spend precious moments together discussing the day to come, loved ones and how good He is to me. There are some nights when sleep robs me of this intimate time, but I praise Him for that much needed relief as well.

God brought a crazy dog into our family to provide distraction and companionship. Lily doesn't care if I stutter or forget what I was saying as long as I rub her belly!

God chose an exciting time in medical research about fibromyalgia for me to be diagnosed. Just last month, researchers were finally able to determine the biological cause of the disease which will lead to medicines that actually treat fibromyalgia and not just the symptoms. Hopefully, this research is also the beginning of finding a cure!

Jesus is teaching me to rest and focusing His call to ministry for me. He is making it clear where He wants me to serve and providing for any gaps. In rest, He is teaching me to seek Him. Our time together has been more rich and abundant than I can ever remember.

I thank Him for the good days and praise Him on the bad days. I am asking Him to give me wisdom in how I spend the energy and feel good that I have each day. I have learned that there is a balancing act I must participate in to have more good days. On those days when I feel energized and like I can take on the world, I must restrain my enthusiasm and pace myself, resting often or I will have more bad days. On those days when I feel weighed down and getting out of bed is a struggle, I must push myself and maintain some activity level or I will have more bad days. I have learned to seize the moment, laugh at myself, live with less and seek Him first.

Debilitating illness.

That is not how I saw the rest of my life...but in the last two months, God has been showing up and showing off big and I can take a lifetime of that.