IMG_190131 Days Walking Through Chronic Illness

day twenty~six

“Isn’t this the place we all long to return to in our spiritual lives. We hunger for the sweet place that will be unhindered by the daily grind of life. We all long for the bliss of an intimate, unrestrained love relationship with God.”

Playdates with God~Laura J. Boggess

“We hunger for the sweet place that will be unhindered by the daily grind.” ~Playdates with God~Laura J. Boggess

Do you have a sweet place? That place where you are unhindered by the daily grind?

For most of my adult life, I have kept the daily practice of a “quiet time.” A time to open the Scriptures, pray, and journal.

In the early days, it was stiff. A mite formal. Not quite sure what I was supposed to do or how to do. I sat there, I read some scriptures, mumbled a few words. Captured some thoughts with pen and paper.

For many years, I suspect this was one more thing to check off my list. What good girls were supposed to do. And so I did.

I imagine the doing and the checks on my list, were partly the cause for my crash into the pit.

Even there, in the pit, was the quiet time.

It was not very quiet. Like a sassy child, prone to get the last word in, I mostly ran my mouth. Oh, it was in a quiet sort of way.

The whys, the what were you thinking, the why me over and over, and how could you. “Do you even have a clue what you just did?”, the most irreverent of all. It was ugly.

When I came out of that place, my practice began to change.

I still asked for things. Maybe even demanded, in my quiet way.

I wanted this to be different. Lasting. Life sustaining.

I wanted to fall in love. Fall in love Him. Develop a relationship, minus the to do list, the checks marked out to the side.

I began to pray for this. Pray that I would fall in love. Pray that God would become my heart’s desire. The Love of my life.

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 NIV

I wanted to be thrilled by his Word. Delighted in his presence. Consumed by him.

I knew from all I had done, been through in the past, this time had to be different. No more crashes. No more muddy pits.

The refining came. Light shining through the broken cracks of me. There was a shift.

“…this turning toward and not away. This constant edging closer, seeking to know in deeper ways.” Playdates with God~Laura J. Boggess

Suddenly, words that were once demanding, even sometimes demeaning; they bended round a different way. They became words of love, and adoration.

My journal gradually changed to love letters. Love letters to Him. Words, I heard back in answer, inscribed across the page.

The sweet place. Longing to meet there again. ‘Till it became the sacred thing I carried within.

This was the place that saved me, when my life changed. The hope that makes it worth walking through the hard places. The grace that met me at every dark turn.

My heart breaks for the one who struggles with chronic illness of any kind; for the hopeless one, it shatters.

It is not a path to travel alone.

Alone, it is hopeless. Without joy and peace.

You, my friend, are the one I long to reach. To take your precious face in my hands, whisper soft, “there is a way.”

My sweet husband, he holds my hand. My family, my friends, they love and support. Stop by to do and take, sit with me on the hardest days. My community, they pray, they encourage.

The Love of my life, He sustains. Gives me a reason to set my feet on the floor, swallow the pills and the Gatorade. Keeps me moving through the daily grind towards Him.

Not allowing me to give up or give in to it. When it is rest and comfort that is needed, He is the one who wraps around me like a blanket.Whispers to me, I Am with you. I have you in this.

There is a hand, THE HAND, reaching out to you~take it, hang on to it. Let him carry you through the deep.

Gifts of Grace

Tammy Mashburn

 

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