Back from the Brink

I never planned on celebrating Lent.

But sometimes plans take on a mind of their own.

The past month my little family has been living under a fog of sleepless nights and fevers and keeping up with who had what medicine when. 

It's been hard.

And I've missed you guys.  Missed sharing with you and hearing from you.

But there are times to talk and times to shut up.  And though I honestly had no time to blog, it would have been detrimental if I had.  Because I know I would have complained the whole time.

There is a time for everything,
   and a season for every activity under the heavens:

  a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,
  a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,
  a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance,
 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
  a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,
  a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,
  a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I would go to bed at night with thanks that we were portioned just enough grace to make it through our day and high hopes that tomorrow would be better....brighter....lighter.

But days would come and go and we would lay to rest one symptom only to strap on new ones.

Have you ever had those seasons?  Seasons of sickness, heaviness?

I remember six years ago having one.  It was right after Little Middle was born and within his first two weeks he had RSV and Ninja and Sweet Yahoo had other infections from every orifice in their head.  My memories are still fresh of breathing treatments and babies crying and Mamas crying.  I was overwhelmed....and dying.

You see, in retrospect, I see that those turbulent, agonizing, come-to-the-end-of-myself seasons are when I get the opportunity to die to myself. 

And dying is hard.  And painful.  And I have found the deeper the selfishness rooted in me the longer the death must be.

Where is Dr. Kevorkian when  you need him?

Some days the weight and the wait were so overwhelming.  I would cry out for God to rescue us. 

I've grown up a lot some in these 6 years.  My idea of a God-rescue back then meant all the kids would be well and healthy and smiling.  Not that those things aren't good.   And you better believe I still ask for them.  But I know now that these trials, these momentary light afflictions, that Refiner's fire that I love to talk about so much is tremendously more interested in my spiritual disease than the physical. 

So no, I do not typically celebrate Lent.  But Lent found me this year.  These 40 days before The Great Physician healed me.  Without my knowing I was lead into a season where I was able, had the opportunity, to daily die with him.  When I wanted to be sleeping or playing or....blogging for Pete's sake....instead I was taking up my cross. 

This short temporary season of illness my family has wrestled with has been such a gentle reminder of God's love for me.  That He sent His Word and healed my disease.  That He does provide all the grace we need.  Daily.  That no antibiotic, decongestant or steroid will ever sustain us the way He does. 



 
So I guess without meaning to I gave up blogging...and sleeping....and eating for Lent.  And it was well worth it.  Because not only am I 5 pounds lighter, but I can say with great humility that I have gotten to share in His sufferings. 

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3: 8-11