CONSIDER

Consider the work of God,

For who is able to straighten what He has bent?

In the day of prosperity be joyful,

But in the day of adversity consider -

God has made the one as well as the other
So that man will not discover what the future holds. Ecclesiastes 7:13-14

I've been reading Ecclesiastes and I came to these verses the other day......they give me so much comfort, they really do. But they are also hard to swallow and hard to understand. Before I met Chris and before I had experienced disappointments and sicknesses and painful experiences in life these verses would have seemed to me to be a slap in the face.....why would God make days of adversity in our lives? That doesn't seem very loving?

But the older I get, the more I see the pain people experience in this life - death of loved ones, unexpected terminal diseases, abuse as children and trying to sort it out when you become an adult, marriages filled with apathy rather than love, sudden and complete loss of money and jobs, etc. I look at the experiences of others and I look at the things Chris and I have experienced - chronic urinary tract infections that cause tremendous amounts of pain with only a handful of days between infections, severe allergies that cause him to stop breathing occasionally at night and wake up suddenly gasping for air, pressure sores, weakness from paralysis and the pain of being ostracized by society, daily pain in the only muscles in his body that work - pain in the wheelchair and pain in the bed. These are just the daily struggles he experiences.......

But can I share what it's like as a spouse to watch the man you love experience these things???

Sometimes I feel sad, just sad for him and for what he experiences - the physical pain and the emotional pain of feeling like an outcast, feeling like everyone's charity case, feeling like he's a nuisance or burden on friends because he has so many needs that the average person doesn't have. Sometimes I feel angry - angry at people, angry at doctors, angry at nurses, angry at the injustice of how he is treated and looked down upon, angry at Chris for not being healthy and feeling good (not that he has control over it, but it's how I feel sometimes and I'm just being honest - it's irrational but it's honest!). Sometimes I feel indifferent - when it gets too intense, too hectic, when I'm too tired, when I realize the lack of control that I truly have over making the situation better - I shut down emotionally and am more like a robot going through the motions of what tasks need to be accomplished but there's not love or compassion exuding out of me or out of my actions.

But overall, when it really comes down to it, I feel my heart break and yet I know that this is our path to walk together. We walk it together when we have energy and when we don't. We walk it together when we have compassion and understanding for each other's side of the situation and when we don't. We walk it toegher when we're weary and when we're focused, when we're crying and when we're motivated......this is our journey to walk together.

So it is when I realize this that the verses above give me tremendous comfort. For my God, the God who I worship is in control of it all. He makes the days of prosperity and the days of adversity. And so when Chris and I walk this journey of life together we walk it with our God - and He is the one who provides the energy, the motivation, the focus, and the drive to endure and hopefully to endure well.

I love my husband and I love my God. I'm so thankful that I have a God who walks with me through every experience in my life and that He will use EVERY single experience of pain and of joy and everything in between to make me more like Jesus. For Jesus endured much, much more than I every have and that I ever will.

In fear and trepidation I come before my God and ask Him to use the pain in our lives to produce Jesus' character within me.......for the depth of Jesus' willpower and focus to do God's will and to suffer well I will never fully grasp........

......Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him (eternity and the salvation of the world) endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grown weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:2-3

This verse was the end of the original blog that I wrote, however, 5 minutes after writing this I got a call from Chris and he said that He got results back from a bladder test that said he has a very resistant bacterial infection......it's a bacteria that he has had before but it took a long time and a lot of antibiotics to fully kill it in the past. And it's one that makes him feel even more like garbage than the "normal" ones.

So Lord, I thank you for showing me these truths about You and reminding me that You have made today and today's news just as much as you made our wedding day and the joys that we felt on that day. Thank you for being ever-present with me and with Chris as we face this challenge and this pain. Do with this experience what You will.