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October 13, 2009

like a seed

I've been giving God the silent treatment these past few days...maybe a week. For a while I had really come to terms with this diagnosis. I had decided that if Jesus asked me to "die" every day for the rest of my life...even if this meant emotional depression every day for the rest of my life, that I would accept that as being from his hand.

But this is a hard resolve to keep, and slowly my heart slipped from that stance, as the lies kept being whispered in my ear. He doesn't hear you. You'll never be happy again. Your husband regrets marrying you. It would be better to just end your life now than be miserable for the next sixty years. For a while, I was denying these lies and trying to replace them with the truth. But to be honest, when the lies start hitting at 6:45 in the morning and continue until 12:00 at night, day after day after day after day, it's pretty exhausting.

So last night I lay in bed, and my heart was just as hard as stone. I had had a great evening with Jeremy, but as usual as I settled into bed, the tears started coming. Usually the thoughts that plague me are, well, that was a worthless day. Your life is worthless. Nobody even cares that about what you did today. It was all meaningless. So then I cry and feel miserable and fight suicidal thoughts. It's a lovely cycle.

I laid there crying, apologizing for being such a terrible wife, trying to believe my husband's affirmations that he loves me, that he's in this with me, that he doesn't view me as a burden. Eventually I gave up crying and rolled over to go to sleep. And as my thoughts fluttered around and I fought tears, I felt the Lord asking Why won't you let me near?

Because you made me to be a sad person.
I replied. Because you won't take this away. Because there is not actually any future for me.

And then, in a miraculous moment, truth actually broke through to my heart and I remembered that He loves me, he knows my innermost thoughts, he is writing a story of hope and restoration for me life. I remembered that when something dies in God's kingdom, He always raises something better to life through that death. Just as Jesus told us that a seed must die in order to bear fruit...Just like Paul said: that we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

And so I came to grips once again with the death of Jesus that I am being asked to carry so the life of Jesus will be revealed in my life. Not an easy thing to do, and yet it is what Jesus is calling me to. And so I will stand up again and continue to move forward, even when I'm sad, even when I'm hopeless, because I know ultimately my hope lies in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

With a sigh of relief I let go of the lies and clung to truth. And I let God near for the first time in a long time, and was reminded that "In His presence is fullness of Joy, at His right hand there are pleasures forever." [psalm 16]

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