“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage” [Lao Tzu]
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Today I turned twenty-five.
“It’s necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.” [Alexandre Dumas; The Count of Monte Cristo]
I am living a life I never thought I’d see; a life I wasn’t even certain I wanted. But God. The only two words I think I’ll ever need. But God…what else is there to say? He is so faithful. & He is good. He is good, all the time. & they sound like cliches, but they saved a life. My life. & I’m truly lost for words.
My (failing) heart has never felt so full. So this is what hearts are for, I remind myself. For loving. Not breaking. & doctors will tell you it isn’t possible, but I was loved back to life. They’ll tell you it was medication or ECT, transfusions or that my neurotransmitters blah blah blah. But it was love that saved me. Love & the ceaseless prayers of the most incredible women I know. I don’t have words for this, either.
I really am the luckiest girl in the world. To my friends reading this: thank you. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for believing in me, & for me. Thank you for having faith when I’d misplaced mine, for having hope when I had none. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for teaching me what hearts were made for. Thank you for petitioning heaven for my miracle. Thank you for sticking around even after the crisis is over. Thank you for literally loving me back to life.
Today I turned twenty-five.
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God’s fixed purpose is not the destruction but instruction of his people. Wisdom hangs up the thermometer at the furnace mouth, and regulates the heat. The God of providence has limited the time, manner, intensity, repetition and effect of all our sicknesses; each throb is decreed, each sleepless hour predestined, each relapse ordained, each depression of spirit foreknown, and each sanctifying result eternally purposed. Nothing great or small escapes the ordaining hand of Him who numbers the hairs of our head. The limit is wisely adjusted to our strength, to the end designed, and to the grace apportioned. We cannot suffer too much nor be relieved too late. The limit is tenderly appointed. He who has fixed the bounds of our habitation, has also fixed the bounds of our tribulation. Charles Spurgeon
The God of providence.
Boy, is He the God of providence.
This week I turn twenty-five.
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“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” [C.S Lewis - Mere Christianity]
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I promised myself I wouldn’t leave it so long again, but it’s been at least six months since I last posted; words, anyway. & it’s strange, because it’s not that I have nothing to say. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. I have everything to say. The problem lies with the how. Sometimes I don’t know where to start. Sometimes I’m scared of starting, because I don’t know where it will end. I used to be afraid of endings. I used to be afraid of beginnings. Heck, I used to be afraid of everything. But now? Now there’s not a lot that scares me. I have this sick, sad tendency towards comparisons that no-one should ever have to make. But you work with what you have, even when it breaks your heart. It’s the only way.
I still don’t know where to begin. I don’t know the order of things, or how to make them their right size. Mostly I wander my life at the moment all stuck in my head, or stumbling around the place trying not to collapse under the weight of my heart. Neither of those are bad things; just sayin’. Friends say I’m disappearing…I’m quieter, lonelier, more distant. & maybe they’re right, but it’s OK. I’m not unhappy, not always, anyway. I think it just takes time getting used to this. This living thing. Suddenly I’m worrying about the state of my bones or the fact my kidneys are getting worse & not better. I’ve never had to do this before. Before it didn’t matter; I mean, what use is great bone density when you’re dead?
I am happy, don’t get me wrong. I’m a million light years from where I was this time last year, & the miracle of that fact isn’t lost on me. Not for a single second do I forget how blessed I am, how faithful & gracious God is. Last year shattered everything; but it needed to. I know less now than I ever have. & yet the one thing I do know, is enough to cover everything I don’t.
“Delight yourself in the Lord, & He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). Sometimes the despair & the need are so great within me. I wonder how I can even get up under he weight of it all. But I am reminded of the one who made me, the one who knew every wish & longing of my heart before it was even formed, & there is peace. There has to be. Because if I can’t trust God with this, then….? Then nothing. There’s no if. I take comfort in the knowledge that God knows my desperation. He knows my need. He knows the beauty & the anguish of desire. But in His timing, not mine. Oh Lord you know my heart. You know every part of me. It’s so easy to put limits on God. To ponder the impossible & declare it so. But I know there’s not a true desire in my heart that God himself didn’t put there…Oh Lord grant me patience. I want my timing, but I trust yours. I have to.
I don’t know which way is up at the moment. Which, though disconcerting, isn’t necessarily an uncomfortable feeling. I feel like sometimes it’s good to have your foundations rattled; it’s good to see the sun filter in through last nights mascaraed-eyelashes & honestly have no clue who you are. How can you find yourself until you’ve been truly lost? It takes a lot less energy to let go than it ever did holding on. I don’t know much right now, only that He is good. All the time. & I don’t write that as some silly maxim or cliched throw-away; I write it as truth. & it is enough.
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Mapping
