August 4, 2008

How about all this sunshine? Holy cow, I'm loving this because I can actually sit outside and get some color for once. I'm working hard at erasing the pasty-white look that I've sported for quite some time. It feels good to enjoy the basic things with everyone else, although I've hit quite a bump in the road since being back from my trip. I wish I could shake this fatigue and resume at least where I was prior to traveling. I guess it just goes to show that our foundations are pretty shaky sometimes. While on vacation I think it allowed me to sort of pretend I didn't have the issues that I do and behave somewhat normally. Now that reality has struck again it feels like I'm starting over in a sense.

Its hard to explain to people the cycles that a person goes through when life doesn't seem to be heading in the direction we had thought it would. I guess everyone handles things differently, even as Christians. There can sometimes be this sense that if you have faith in God that we should never feel disappointed, scared, frustrated or discouraged. But, what I've found for myself is that when I try to push those feelings aside and just keep "praising God", it only makes things worse. It truly is like brushing them under the rug. When I finally come to the end of myself with these feelings shoving their way back to the front, then I know I have to deal with them. Truly I just don't want to. I want to be this person who embraces adversity with such strength, hope and trust that these things don't phase me. It sounds so strong and spiritual, doesn't it? My truth is that I'm just not that strong. I'm not always moving through my life with that kind of attitude. The rest of my truth, though, is that when I admit where I'm at and stop trying to grind my way through, I FINALLY do get to that place of trusting God and believing that all things are being worked out in my behalf.

So, lately I've been asking myself some pretty difficult questions...well...difficult for me I guess. Like, "Should I really be believing for a complete recovery?", "Should I just settle for where I'm at and let go of the rest?" The weak part of me wants to answer "YES" to all of those kinds of questions. But, the part of me that believes God is more than capable and willing to answer my prayers in regards to this matter based on scripture...that part of me continues to talk louder than everything else. I feel like if I stop believing for my healing, or for whatever I have laid at the throne of God, then I have given up. I have given up too soon. As long as we have breath, then we have hope. I think about how Moses did so much and gave so much to help Israel reach the promise land. And, even though he was not allowed to enter...he still kept marching on. I wonder how much it grieved him that the decisions he made caused him to miss out on God's promise. It makes me more afraid NOT to believe God than to believe Him and be disappointed. I don't want to miss out on anything God has for me and my family. I don't want to be cut short of my promise land...to only walk up the mountain and see it from afar the way Moses did. My heart always aches for him when I read that part of scripture.

Well, right now I'm working through my cycle...I've pushed the feelings aside for a while, I've decided to finally deal with them, I've asked some hard questions, and now I'm answering them with faith and hope and trust. Because I've had times in my life where I've tried to answer them from my own world point of view and it never left me with any hope at all. My joy will be complete to get through this journey and prove God true so that others going through something similar or heaven-forbid, something much worse will know they have a loving God holding their hand.

God is good!
Blessings, Tanya