Day 64 - 38 days 'til Christmas

Me at Disney World, Christmas time some five years ago, a happier, healthier time in my life.

     Yesterday, I caught up on my emails. Sorting the junk mail from the updates on friends, acquaintances and bills. I got some bad news about a younger brother of a childhood friend. He'd been sitting in his study, had shooting pains and wound up recuperating in the hospital. We truly do not know the number of our days. Still recuperating myself, I bought the fixings for Thanksgiving dinner and then came home and sunk into refuge of my recliner, quilts and remotes in hand. On and off I tackled a few projects but slunk back to my chair aware I am still weak. I can't help wondering if this not feeling good is going to end, or if it's the beginning of a more serious decline. Time will tell.

     At home, I caught bits and pieces of news programs. Videos of the hurricane aftermath. Houses in ruin, people without power, or homes. Wars and rumors of wars. Intermixed was weird overtones of Black Friday sales hype. We are a strange culture of buying and selling in the middle of a sinking ship of world upheaval.

     I am awake before 5 am. A quiet house on an early Sunday morning. I will have some company coming this week and the house beckons me to clean, I am still too tired and realize tomorrow at this time I will be getting ready for work, fortunate to have only a 3 day work week, but one full of month end reports and endless groups and lectures.

     I realize I need to rekindle my positive outlook and know I need to do something different. Bad weather upon us with a fury, outside treks are put on hold. Along with the awareness that my good health has somehow flown out the window. Another guy at my work was lamenting his own bout with the "bug" wondering if he would ever feel better. So, usual retreats aside, I know something must change. Diving into a spiral of dismal self-introspection hasn't historically been demonstrated as a "cure-all" for blues of any kind. World or personal problems haven't been solved in a pity-party soup of "poor me".

     So, what about "talk therapy?" Can I simply talk myself out of feeling bad? I have clients who subscribe to this theory and every group they try to dominate the conversation sharing their story, their opinions their view of me, me, me. Nope, I can't see that their self-absorbed perspective is gaining them any insight into their own problems, so why would I believe indulging in the same belly-button concentration would help me? Hmm....it all goes back o the age-old dilemma of faith versus reason. Men (and women) throughout the ages have fallen into the trap of thinking, "We can just think ourselves out of what ever problem presents itself." There is some kind of intrinsic delight into believing that the answer lies within.

     However, I've been down this road before enough times to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the answer certainly does not lay within me for sure. Times before when presented with some kind of a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in my life I have only found real relief in seeking God, hanging on for dear life and waiting.

     Downstairs in my laundry room a pile of clothes awaits my tending. When you live in a large house, with lots of extra rooms, I believe the laundry pile becomes proportionately large. Anyway, inside that pile, is an old hand-embroidered picture of Elijah with his hand out, the raven sent by God hovering just overhead with bread in it's mouth. I made that rough-hewn picture some 40 years ago, an abandoned, pregnant wife living in a small Tacoma apartment waiting for my first child to be born.

     In those subsequent 40 years of living, there have been many times when like Elijah, I've had to wait, that I've been frustrated. Doing something, figuring things out, making plans, taking action. Those are things that "feel better" than waiting. Waiting seems so passive, so not doing anything. As a teenager at camp, Miracle Ranch outside Seattle, I learned a chorus, "They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings of Eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Teach me Lord, teach me Lord, to wait." Isaiah

     And so now, here I am pressed in on all sides by things that need done. Lacking strength and resources to fulfill what needs done. I am like the boy trying to fix the hole in the dike with his finger. My financial ruin is kept at bay by a feeble attempt to 'rob Peter to pay Paul' syndrome. Here a little, there a little trying to keep lights and heat on. Water and food. My bill pile is huge and I realize I am only one of millions caught up by inflationary spirals, and the horrible awareness that the home you bought dropped it's value 40, 50, 60 thousand dollars and you are so far under "water" with the mortgage you'll never see daylight.

    But then, it is a week of Thanksgiving. My refrigerator is full of food. The lights are still on. Although outside, the rains are coming torrentially down, I am safe inside, with heat and comfort. So many would trade my safe, perch for their own traumatic world of disaster. I need to acquire a global outlook, a perspective that includes an awareness that even in my worst case scenario, foreclosure, terminal illness, I still have so many advantages millions to not have. That even at my point of most desperate need, I am still surrounded by so many blessings, including, and foremost, my awareness that God loves me, and no matter what He will help me through.

     So, no matter what, I will try to continue. To hope and pray for strength to complete my tasks. To finish what lays ahead and to try to maintain a grateful heart, to realize I am not alone, that God holds my right hand.

Today, if you struggle with your own valley of despair, take heart. Lift your cares to the God of all compassion. If you are sick, my heart goes out to you. Two weeks of illness and I realize what a struggle being ill is. If you are poor, my hands reach out to you. Struggling this last two years I realize financial pressures can be horrific. If you are depressed, take heart, read the Psalms, pray and find others to help take you through the darkness. God is light and in Him there is no darkness. Although your way may be dim, the struggle long, believe that someday the burden will be lifted. The chorus of an old song goes, "Burdens are lifted at Calvary, Calvary, Calvary. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near." I believe you can be like the man who came to Jesus and he said, "I believe, help Thou my unbelief." It is not our faith that saves us, it is not our mind or reason that thinks us out, it is Jesus, only Jesus.