I’m going to give you everything I really understand about Kidney Stones. (I’ll clarify, for those of you with any medical knowledge, that if I’m wrong, this is almost verbatim what the doctor in Haiti told me. If it’s wrong, do not inform me because it means the doctor could be wrong about a lot else.) kidney stones are created as the junk which has been stored in the kidneys (probably from my Mt. Dew and Taco Bell diet) is eventually released. The kidneys are an important part of purifying my body.
Let me paint the picture of my life this past week for you. I spend my days lying on the floor of the bathroom, which I also call my bedroom. I have an IV duct taped to the window above me, close enough to the toilet so I can either puke or pee without disrupting the IV. The roosters wake me up at 5am, and the sun sets without power about 6. So I read and write when I can, and sleep the other times. That’s been my life for four or five days, and in the midst, I try to drink an ocean’s worth of water.
But as I lie on my mat, God has been talking to me a lot about cleansing. He has brought me to a place where he has tried to cleanse me of pride, strength, wisdom, and expectations. God seldom removes things without replacing them with something better. For my pride, he is teaching me to boast in Him. For my strength, weakness and dependance. For my wisdom, a foolishness of trust. And for expectations, he’s giving me nothing but His character. I love when God’s lone answer to a prayer is simply, “I’m an honest God, I cannot lie,” or “I have no beginning or end, start or finish.”
The reality in my life resembles what David wrote in Psalm 40:17 “I am poor and needy, may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer, oh my God, do not delay.” As I relate to this prayer, if I’m honest, understanding it for the first time, I love David’s desperation. I love it because it always arrives at the hope of the cross.
Not being able to share in the ministry of my team directly has been difficult. Instead of a serving ministry, I’ve been a part of a listening ministry. I’ve stopped and listened to the Lord, and as my father shared with me in an email last night some of the things God’s revealed to him in his times of listening, God has taught me over and over the truth of Ps. 90:12 about numbering my days. I have today. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow isn’t promised…so give me wisdom to follow you diligently today, and to grow so I am prepared to be your man tomorrow, should He take me there.
If he’s purified one thing, however, it’s that Jesus is all I want, all I need, and all there is. Yet again, David wrote, in Ps 73:25 “The earth has nothing I desire besides You.” May this time of cleansing have purified my heart to trust in that truth from now until I’m called home!
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Pray for my healing. Pray that God removes the stones completely, and that I am given strength to minister again. I haven’t been able to eat for a few days, so pray that I can get food down and that it will rejuvenate me.
