Well, here I am. As promised. Although I never expected it to come so soon…
One week in…
Sickness can bring us to our knees.
As I sit here, watching as my teammates to prepare to leave for this evening’s ministry, I can’t help but think this is God’s doing. Though I’ve tried and tried to quiet myself, to bring myself to a place of complete rest and focus on Him, everything going on around me makes it difficult. This month, ministry is slow. Don’t get me wrong, our hospital ministry has been great and I think God is working in it. But when you think of the world race, you think.. go, go, go. This month is more rest, rest, rest. The majority of our day is spent at our house.
Even so… with so much time to rest. With so much time to spend with God, I’ve been distracted. There is always something going on or someone to talk to. I loved the way one of my teammates put this type of living… “Sometimes you need to go into a shell and just be by yourself, but we’re all sharing the same shell.”
I’ve heard that this constant forced community can be hard, but thus far… I have loved it. For the past year, I feel as though I’ve been starved of community. While I was in Spokane, I was constantly in community. It was there I learned what true community looks like. I loved it. As hard as it can be, it is so refreshing.
Then I left Spokane and moved to a new city. Without that community, life was hard. Once you live in community, returning to a life without it is like trying to breath smoke-filled air. It’s hard.. Your health is drastically affected. Your quality of life is affected. Jumping back into the body of Christ is liking breathing the fresh mountain air… it’s one of my favorite things. So to be living this way has been so amazing.
I have yet to wish I could be completely alone, but when I try to quiet myself before the Lord it is easy to be distracted by conversation or activity among my team. While time with my team is God-honoring and healthy, it will always falls short to the time spent communing with God.
As I said before, this sickness has brought me to my knees. I don’t have the strength to join with them in the activity of the day. I don’t have the strength to serve alongside them this evening. This afternoon as they did a deep cleaning on the house we are staying in, I listened as I rested on my sleeping pad upstairs. Even now, they are out and about with our ministry host and I am sitting in the living room writing a blog. As hard as this is and as much as I would love to jump into hospital ministry with them, I feel that through this sickness, God is saying.. “stay, rest with me tonight.” And seeing as I barely have the strength to go up and down the stairs, I have no option to say no.
This time is a blessing in disguise.
The Lord is my strength, Amen.
