hope

This is a paragraph from the book I'm reading, Patient Endurance by Kari Bailey that I read this morning:

Whatever you do, don't lose hope for your healing and wholeness. Fight for what is rightly yours. Keep seeking God for wisdom to guide your next step. As discouraging as going from one doctor to the next and trying procedure after procedure has been, it has proved to be the right move for me. I wish I could have got the solution right the first time, but God in His sovereignty has allowed me to hop from place to place, trying new things. Though He has allowed me to suffer much pain in the process, nothing is wasted in the Kingdom of God, and He will use everything for his glory... When we have God, we are never without hope. Don't give up, and don't give in. The Lord will give you what you need to endure until the end.

My Ebenezer

Tomorrow is my visit to the surgeon. I am very anxious but have been trying to trust in God's plan. My prayers are filled with requests of peace for whatever is decided. Should it be surgery, I pray for peace for how it will effect my school year and the process of the surgery itself. Should they not decide to do surgery, I pray for peace for trying to decipher what road I need to take next. I am praying for continual acceptance of my limitations, whatever they may be this year. I will continue to try to do grace and not stuff.

One of my favorite hymns ever is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Verses two says "Here I raise my Ebenezer". This does not mean that you are holding up an old crotchety man from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. This is in reference to a verse in I Samuel 7:12. The Israelites had been in battle with the Philistines, and the people had told Samuel to not stop crying out to the Lord. He made a sacrifice to the Lord, and when the Philistines attacked, God helped the Israelites defeat the Philistines.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying "Thus far the Lord has helped us." So the Philistines were subdued and they stopped invading Israels territory. Throughout Samuel's lifetime, the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines. - 1 Samuel 7:12-13

Thus far, the Lord has helped me. I have been given many Ebenezers in people's prayers, help, kind words and love. I know He will continue to give me Ebenezers no matter what may come.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by thy help I'm come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God;

He to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.

Do grace

I am a do-er. I love to be doing things. I am doing grad school. I am doing my thesis. I am doing my research. I am doing a 4.0 grade point average in my graduate degree. I am doing my teaching job. At my teaching job, I am doing committees and extra classes and extra clubs. I am doing my church job. I do choir and praise band and media and sound set up. I do Sunday School for the kids during part of the summer. I am doing my job as a wife. I do dinner, I do cleaning, I do grocery shopping. I do extra things to make my friends feel special. I do surprise parties, cupcake dates, fun nights out. Even when we're sitting around in the evening with the TV on, I am frequently doing.

This morning, I was reading the book Patient Endurance, which is written by a young woman close to my age who lives life in chronic pain from back problems. Today I was reading about accepting your limitations. I wrote down a couple quotes in my journal about limitations.

"I do have to accept the here and now and submit to its limits and boundaries."

"When you accept your limitations, you are not giving up on your faith or your hope of being healed."

I journaled about my limitations, how I have a very real time limit on activity, how my house is never clean because scrubbing bathtubs picking up is difficult. The next couple questions to journal on were "How do I accept my limitations and surrender my will to God?" and "What does God want to teach me?" I believe what God wants to teach me, is this. It's not about doing. I don't have to do everything that I once did. It's about showing the love, grace, compassion and peace of God to those around me. I don't need to be teacher of the year. But I need to show my kids love and grace and compassion. I don't need to run everything at church. I need to demonstrate how God is working through me and empower others to do some of the jobs that I can't. I don't need to have a spotless house to show my husband I love him. But I do need to take time to show him love and patience. I am going to try (yes, try... I know I will stumble) to let God take away some of my doing. Instead, as this school year starts, my goal is to do grace. To do love. To do compassion. To do peace. To do rest in God.

Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations... At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and I begged God to remove it. Three time I did that, and He told me, My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength is all you need... Now I take limitations in stride and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down in size... I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. -2 Cor. 12:7-10 (Message)