Can you hear the wind today? It's a persistent sound, although it varies in it's pitch. The leaves give it depth because....there are LEAVES! It's different from the cold, harsh, snappy sound of a winter wind blowing through the dead sticks and leaves or over the hard packed snow. This is a spring wind, rich with blowing greens and newly budded trees, like my cherry tree, popping out buds and flowers like popcorn.
Life is beautiful today. It may have been beautiful yesterday or the day before, or the month before but I was blind to it if it were. But today, although bruised and sore and tired and weary, I am reborn.
You know the day after being sick or having the flu? Remember that first day that you feel better. The day you know you are on the mend. Optimism overwhelms, colors are brighter, sounds are clearer, appreciation flows through your veins. That is me, today.
I have to admit that my faith is not that great. Here are the words that came out of my mouth this week:
"God doesn't answer prayers like that."
I said that with tears in my eyes, and a sadness in my heart. I believed those words. I believed them based on my tiny knowledge of life and who God is. It was based on my history of selfish prayers gone unanswered, like the desperate plea in the middle of the night when the baby's cry pierces your eardrums and you CAN'T imagine getting up again. It is painful to move. There are tears in your eyes.You squeeze them tightly and pray with all your might, "Please God, please, please, please, let the baby go back to sleep." But the baby doesn't. You don't either. And somehow, this has become the basis for my unbelief. Even I recognize the shallowness of this.
For over a month now, my head has hurt. It has started with a nagging pressure in the morning, right when I wake up. It will progress to a blinding, debilitating horror by evening. I will throw up from the pain at times. I will cry in the shower each night. I will miss most of the best things in life every evening as I have offered my only good hours to my job. I can only get through the day.
I have frantically adjusted and changed everything I could possibly dream that could cause such a thing in my life. Just to verify how wide reaching my ideas have been: I've changed pillows, adjusted sleep schedules, quit caffeine, ate all natural foods, saw the dentist several times, got x-rays, multiple chiropractor visits, massages, neck alignments, long hot showers with plenty of tears, bought a new chair at work, removed half of all the florescent lights in our office, increased my water intake, medications medications medications, exercise, prayer, repeat. It didn't work.
Saturday, I woke up with the blinding pain. I didn't even get a few good hours in the morning. I lied to everyone and told them I was fine. By afternoon, I was sobbing in my bed once again, begging God for mercy. I bargained and pleaded and when it persisted, I couldn't take it anymore. I went to the hospital. And two days later, I am home.
Today, I have no pain.
Do you KNOW what that is like? I wish I could offer you a portion of my joy today.
However, with my joy comes the full awareness of my shortcomings. Of my lack of faith. Of how a month of pain and unanswered prayer could diminish my FAITH to near nothing. Where I relied on those around me to pray. Where I relied on those around me to believe, because I was empty.
This is hard to admit, see. Being a Christian most of my life. Then I encounter this thing, and I let go of all of it because God didn't answer my prayer. Not the way I wanted. Not in my timing. Not in the way I asked. Why? Why not? Why does he not heal people? Why do people, much worse off that I, die of cancer too young? Why are they good people? Why didn't God answer their prayers?
"God doens't answer prayers like that." I said to my boss at work on Friday, the night before she'd drive me to the hospital for help.
"Yes he does." she said. "You have to believe. You have to have faith that he will. That you WILL get through this. There is a reason," she said. "You will see."
And my empty little soul could not.
I'm home now. I'm full of joy. But I'm also full of sorrow. My faith is so small. My being is so insignificant. My belief is like the wind. It comes and it goes. It changes with the seasons.
I am learning still. God knows this. Even though my faith is shakeable, my knowledge of his promise is not. I know He loves me. I'm grateful for the opportunity to grow through this. I'm grateful that he'll love me still while I work it out. I'm glad he is a patient teacher. For my imperfection is made blatantly obvious today. But His perfection is made obvious too through the lack of mine. And perhaps that was the point.
I have no answers for anyone. I have no thing that I can tell you for sure. I have no conclusion to this story. I only can tell you I'm working through it, as a slow learner, as a bruised spirit, as a child of God who will continue to long for understanding, who can only pray for a kind of faith that I could be proud of.
Until then....I know I've been given something special. I know this day is a gift. I can hear it in the wind.
"This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24
