what makes one press forward? Where does the will to continue stem from, especially in a life bombarded with challenges and fears? Where does the faith to believe in the future take root?
As I draw nearer to the four year anniversary of Todd's cancer diagnosis I've been reflecting on my journey with the Lord. It's a journey filled with highs and many lows. We are blessed that Todd is healthy, that he has an excellent prognosis. We are blessed with two more sons, two lives that we were told would never be. We have our home, our children, and great friends. Yet, we also have scars. Large aches that are so easily nicked, so easily brought to the surface.
When I look at the scars on my heart, scars that I've defined as failure and fear, it's easy to try to hide them from others view. They're raw and painful. I won't measure up to the "ideal" wife and mother and friend that I've created in my head. An ideal based on the world, not the Word. I began to reflect on my journey during that time, and thus I started to read the journal on my caringbridge site. I wanted to remember the rawness of my heart during those dark, dark times. What did I find? A hurting soul desiring that the Lord take this tragedy and turn it to blessing. A heart aching to bring truth and joy to others.
Waiting and wandering is a confusing place to reside. As I wrote before, the battle is less clear, less defined. When cancer was the enemy I knew the weapons. I knew how to fight. Right now? I'm not so confident, not so sure. The battle within, the battle with self, with identity...that's not so black and white. But I've learned from battling oppressive giants that the daily battle needs and requires as much, and perhaps more diligence. It's critical to surrender, to look in at those emotions that are so easily allowed to dictate moods. Look at overwhelm. An individual in overwhelm technically feels that he/she has no options. And as external triggers continue to pile up so does the overwhelm. Daily life, at least at my home, can leave me feeling overwhelmed constantly. So I'm forced, once again, to throw up my arms in surrender to the God of peace and order. And my family watches me. They observe my actions...and the difference when I "pull up my bootstraps" on my own versus getting strength from our God. The scars were there, but I wasn't learning from them. Using them.
I've started to realize that these last couple weeks I've been trying to do it all on my own. I was going to tough it out. I can do it. I can't fail, right? And yet, I was becoming more and more exhausted. Worn out. Feeling like I was failing. Well, it was all self. As much as I spoke of my love and reliance on the Lord, I wasn't living it. I wasn't living and looking to Him for breath and life. It was me. And I was losing.
So today, once again, I surrender. I realize that without Him I am nothing. When my life became reliant on my strength I grumbled, much like the Israelites. Why didn't he hear me? See me? See the daily struggles? Grumble...grumble...grumble. How pitiful. God has been so good to me. It's so easy to look at all the valleys, to look at the time spent in them, and to complain. To be resentful that I have scars. But, in God, those scars are beautiful. When I look in they show a soul reliant on Him, not self. And in Him I find rest. Rest from overwhelm. Rest in the midst of wandering. Rest in the valley, rest on the peaks. Rest.
My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
Psalm 62:1-2
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Posted by Linda 
Nov. 14, 2009 - Hope you have a good weekend!
Philippians 4:19-20: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”