Always ponder...
His love is better than a clean bill of health.
Maybe it's your spouse heart that groans today. This burden every health hurdle seems to fling onto the one you love. How this is a threat, like a wedge, creeping up in your relationship. Again. They are tired of not having a normal home life. They hurt because they want you to be able to do normal things with them. To play, laugh, and run care free beside them. Maybe you watch them try not to be angry at you, but hurt worse, when you see them get angry at God. Or perhaps it's the money. Money you cost, from a body that has no respect for a tight budget or financial plans. You. Mentioning how this alone makes you feel like an endless burden. Each bill, each new health issue, like a hatchet hacking away your ache to set him free from the ugly true of your weak body. But perhaps this is holy too. Like maybe heaven bends low to deliver the most precious of things, to the one we love most. That past the angry is this...holy...waiting. Just for them. Secrets. Wealth of a greater life. One beyond earth skin and human ache. The gift given to the caretakers. The strength, endurance, and rewards of God. Pray for them to push through for the beyond things. The things past a carefree spouse and a bill less life. Things of the Kingdom come.
Perhaps the Mama heart in you aches too. Them so at home in a waiting room, or talking to doctors like they are in the family. This ugly is normal to them. You have said it hurts each time you load them in the car, what feels to you, like dragging them through mud to yet another appt. You have told stories of how they cry. Asking why Jesus doesn't heal you. Or the sadness in their eyes when you can't join in that activity. But maybe, sweet friend, these are the moments where the veil over the holy things gets lifted. Maybe it's here, that children learn compassion, the power of prayer, and learn how to love the 1 Cor. 13 way. How to be over-comers, and mindful, "2 greatest commandment" thrivers. Just know that God is doing what you cannot imagine here. That your children are precious to Him, and He molds souls in ways we cannot imagine. The goodness of God is stark in lands full of black. Weak ones make the boldest story tellers. Tell your babies a story. A personal story about you and your Jesus. How He never fails, and how His compassion is a constant friend. Use the ache, pain, and doctor calls to reveal hidden wealth. God here.
The thing is. It may not end. Health maybe isn't the greatest wealth. If the holy things, the very secrets in the heart of God come through the obscure ways... The narrow ways... The overgrown wild paths.... Then maybe you are right where you need to be. Listen to the dirt beneath your tired feet. Look at the wildflower growing out over onto this path... Hear the wind in the trees overhead... This path may be the overgrown ugly to general, but it's quite possibly the art of God. The raw ways tell the pure stories. The truest things about real life, love, and how He gets us through. Maybe, just maybe your apart of something so much greater. This personal part in a story that God wants told. About how He loves, and how we can now too.
Because the ones who have had to lean in and look up, recognize Him best. Forced perhaps to need help first, yes. But it's these bleeding, raw wounded ones that come to know intimately the real of Jesus Christ. And maybe, just maybe, You are a part of telling the world who He really is. Not the religious Jesus of a mass of world Churches, but this personal, right here Jesus. This person who talks to His Dad about us, intercedes for us without sighing in annoyances...But rather in joy over us. This Jesus who is strong, kind, intentional, patient, and powerful! And if you don't know how, to know Him like this, or perhaps how to tell the story.... Just ask Him. Ask Him to show you Who He is in all this mess you have known for so long. Ask Him to be apart of telling His story with your weakened skin. Tell the story to your husband or wife, and to your babies. To a doctors office, or a stranger in line at Walmart. God is good, and that isn't heard anywhere more powerful than from the lips of the still hurting. Because if we, aching in world skin, can proclaim that we taste and see He is good, despite our challenges, our voice is heard. Loudly, like the echoing song of holy places.
And friend, you have to hear this. The bills may keep coming. Family members make look to you as the cause or annoyance. These things are real realities, and they do hurt and cut deep. But Jesus does not hold you to blame. He does not keep you at arms length. You have to embrace the love and freedom He offers, that's the way home. Because we cannot control our health. We cannot make our spouse's anger subside. We can't make our children choose compassion. But we can live our trust and Love for Jesus out quietly each step along the way. We can pray, for the hearts of the ones we love most. We can trust, that they are personal to Jesus too. And that He can accomplish in them, what a perfect bill of health never could. His ways are higher than your ways. Let Him author the souls of your family. Let Him art the ugly things, so that glory is all that remains. Because He is good. Always.
Even your broken skin, is a tapestry. Even your aching internal, is a canvas. Ask Jesus to make Himself portrait in your life. Let Him Psalm 139 your heart today. Wait for Isaiah 45:3. Because on this hard path, maybe Gen. 28:16 is true after all.
Hang in there. He alone is worth the fight.
