Our day to switch places is coming tomorrow. My husband has reached his breaking point in being in the fight which happens when you've been there a week. My son is letting me know that he needs me to be there with him. My daughter is begging me not to go back. I am wanting to be with my son but dreading the return to the city, the hospital, the hotel and the "routine".
But the fight goes on. It feels like we are perched on a ledge and each day the news from the doctors can push us either over the edge or back into the building but no matter what happens we find ourselves still on the ledge.
It is a battle.
This morning I was led to read Romans 8. It talks about the battle for our minds and our sinful natures.
"If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace." Romans 8:6
When I let my sinful nature control my mind fear, worry, anger and bitterness want to control my mind and that is death. I WANT life and peace.
It is a battle.
I'm trying to stay in it by going to the Word and finding hope. But on many days I really feel like I don't know what else to say to God. I'm sure many of you feel the same way in your own lives or in praying for us as so many of you are doing so graciously.
"And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words." Romans 8:26
So many times I have cried out to God and said "I don't even know how to pray anymore because I just keep saying the same thing--Please Jesus, just heal my boy."
The medical world is a complex web and in particular when you are in a teaching hospital there are levels upon levels of doctors, residents, attendings, etc that come to you each day with their thoughts and opinions of your condition. Some days it seems like all they can tell you is seemingly really bad news. You wonder if you will ever hear a good word or if anyone really knows what they are doing.
"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Romans 8:28
To be honest, I most truly understand that after 9 weeks of our predicament most people's lives have gone on and we are merely a blip on the radar of your daily prayers. I get it. I have lived it when other people's lives were struggling. We also live 30 miles from where we go to church so our dearest friends' daily lives are always far removed logistically from ours. Truthfully, that has always been really, really hard. You feel so removed from the support system you so desire with which to connect. It is lonely and isolating.
"What can we say about such wonderful things as these? [the things working out for the good] If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?" Romans 8:31,32
It is a battle.
Once again, the mind is the battlefield where we must focus on Christ and what He is to us. But we are mere humans and the battle is tough. Yes, Christ loves us and is for us. But sometimes you don't feel it. I told someone at church on Sunday that I just wanted for one good thing to happen for my family this week. It felt awful even expressing that but it is how I am feeling.
I want to focus on what Jesus is to me but, my friends, it is a battle.
"Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. OUR FEARS FOR TODAY, OUR WORRIES ABOUT TOMORROW, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away.
Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:35, 36a,37-39
Run to the battle, my friends. We need each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment