Living Life In Maintenance Mode

“When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?” Isaiah 28:24

    Life for the chronically ill can seem like one endless effort at trying to stay afloat on stormy seas of sickness and disease. It is no wonder when we spend 90 percent of our effort on just surviving our illness that we feel exhausted, irritated, frustrated, and angry.

    When there is no break from the constant struggle with our broken bodies we can find ourselves continually short on the mental and emotional resources to deal with the daily needs of endless illness. And physically we find ourselves pressed beyond our strength to cope with the daily requirements our disease foists upon us.

    New challenges can be daunting, but merely maintaining the status quo can rob us of new experiences and momentous occasions. If all of our energy is laser focused upon merely surviving we can rob ourselves and our loved ones of blessings along the way.

    When looking at endless mountains we must climb with our health woes, we realize we are not going to make it without God’s help. And neither are we going to reach beyond our daily challenges to find blessings in the land of our affliction without God's help.

    We can ask God for healing, comfort, support, and strength. When we feel isolated and alone in our struggles, we can pray for the Lord’s intervention and rescue from the tidal wave threatening to overcome us.

    Thankfully we can call upon the Lord to help carry these overwhelming burdens of sickness and disease. And with His help we can find blessings along the way. 

    We are not alone in our struggles, and our Lord can help us do more than stay in maintenance mode, He can help us to rise above and overcome the adversity of illness.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, too often we are barely able to maintain our everyday difficulties with illness. Help us to overcome, and not be overwhelmed when new problems arise. Amen.

Dealing With Anger and Wrath

 “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil” Psalm 37:8

    For a while now God has been dealing with me and my constant anger. When my illness was taking me close to death I was literally too sick and weak to be angry, but as I recovered from that near-death period of my life, my anger and my wrath came back with intensity.

    Anger is not a Christian virtue. Yes, sometimes we must choose our fights and stand our ground, but living with constant anger and wrath clouds the judgment. And anger can cause serious mistakes and sin. We should give place to anger, and put it where it belongs–in God’s hands.

A gentle answer turns away wrath,

    but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1

    Mental and emotional liabilities are part of living with affliction. I know that my illness affects my emotions, and I try to keep that in mind when I feel myself getting into a rage or generally upset about things. We don’t always see clearly because of our illnesses.

    Nowhere in the Bible does it tell me to share everything I am feeling all the time. If we accept the fact that some of our emotions are arising directly from our illness, it would be a grave mistake to let those feelings loose on everyone around us, especially regarding anger.

    There is one very safe place to take all of our feelings, and that is to the Lord. We can ask Him to help us sort through our emotions to discover what is legitimate and what is not. Ask Him to clear our vision about the offenses we merely perceive or those we actually receive, and then deal with them in His grace. But in many cases we simply give those feelings and outcomes over to Him.

    Maybe your illness has left you with feelings of anger and wrath. I would encourage you to acknowledge that you are angry and upset, and then take it to the Lord and let Him help you sort it out.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, calm our tempers and deliver us from wrath. Help us to sort out our feelings and to give our anger over to You. Amen.

Dealing With Adjustments

 

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Ecclesiastes 11:5 

At every stage of life we must make adjustments. From starting school to starting a new job, our first date until marriage, every new thing in life brings adjustments.

Yet perhaps it is the last stage of life that brings the most adjustments our way. From having good eyesight to needing ever stronger prescription glasses. From enjoying good hearing to needing hearing aids. The hardest adjustment of all is watching friends and loved ones die. There is no adjustment harder than that.

Life is about change. From beginning to end we must accept changes and are forever making adjustments until the Lord calls us home. Each season brings difficulties, but also blessings if we are open to them.

I don’t enjoy getting older. It takes a toll on mind and body. Yet I do enjoy seeing loved ones grow and have little ones of their own. I like being a grandpa, and the expectation of being wiser, even if that is not always the case.

God brings us into many situations that require us to make adjustments. We can fight those situations, or pray for the grace and wisdom to accept them. Hopefully we ask the Lord for grace and grow with the adjustments that come our way.

Prayer: Dear Lord, change is hard, and making adjustments does not come easy. Give us the grace, wisdom, and strength to make the necessary adjustments in our life. Amen.

Our Sacrifices Due To Illness

 “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” Ephesians 5:1-2

    Throughout my daughter’s childhood, illnesses kept me from being able to travel much or to be involved in her activities. This was one of the most painful things in my life. I missed far too much. But I determined that my disabilities would not limit or get in the way of her activities.

    Often, I had to grit my teeth in frustration as my wife and daughter headed out the door to some activity or event. I assured them that I was fine, and they must not feel bad for me, but to enjoy the event. I chose not to go to something that I knew would end up with me becoming a drag on their fun as my illnesses kicked in.

    We sacrifice much because of our illnesses. It is hard to stay home, to lay in our sickbed, and watch our loved ones go off to have fun without us. Yet we don’t want the day to revolve around our limitations instead of the enjoyment of our loved ones.

    Many such events found me home, just the Lord and me in solitude. It is one of those sacrifices that our illness demands that costs us memories and joy and experiences we will never get back. It is one of the hardest things about illness and disability. It is a terrible price to pay for a body that cannot function normally and reminds us of that fact time and again.

    Perhaps you too have made sacrifices because of your illness and feel robbed of experiences with family and friends. These situations we must give over to God, and trust that the losses we suffer here, will be recompensed over there when we reach heaven.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, illness has robbed us of so much, give us comfort and peace in place of our losses. Amen.

We Need Faith In Our Affliction

 “’Where is your faith?’ He asked His disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, ‘Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him'” Luke 8:25

    Some people living with illnesses and afflictions have felt abused by word-of-faith preachers. God does not always heal us just because we believe that He would. Though we are all spiritually healed through faith in Jesus, our physical healing has not always occurred.

    There is a danger in our frustration with faith preachers in diminishing the power and importance of faith itself. God is sovereign and decides who is completely healed physically and who will need to do as the Apostle Paul and learn to trust God in our afflictions by depending upon His grace to carry us through our health challenges.

    We need faith as much for living with illness as to be healed of our illness.

    Faith is powerful and important. We cannot please God without faith (Hebrews 11:16). We need our faith in God to carry us through life when God heals us–and when He does not heal us of physical and/or mental emotional difficulties and challenges.

    Faith is not just about getting everything we want. It is also about trusting God when we do not get everything we want.

    It can be hard not to see faith as a bad word when it is abused, but in our afflictions we need faith more than ever. When we are too weak to even crawl, we need faith in God to pick us up and get us on our feet again. Faith is a spiritual force brought about by hearing God’s word and the activation of the Holy Spirit within us. We cannot live without it as Christians.

    Maybe you feel disappointed by faith preachers. Perhaps you did not get the healing you asked and believed for. It may be that God is trusting you to believe in Him even when you have not received everything you had hoped for yet.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to keep our faith in You strong and steadfast, for You are the object of our faith. Amen.