I don’t think I can do this, Lord.
I sat by the window, listening to the crepe myrtle branches scrape the pane. This is where I had slept, where I had started and finished each day, and where I had watched the world hustle by me for the past few months. I hope to never sit in that recliner again. Slow recovery from a ruptured carotid artery and the the diagnosis that came with it left moments ripe for worry and fear and panic attacks.
I told Him that I was not up to the task. I told Him I did not want this path. I told Him He had the wrong story or the wrong girl or the wrong idea about what was to be left of my life.
I will do this with you, daughter.
I don’t think I can carry this, Lord.
My son came bounding in the bedroom, excited that he had scored his first hockey goal of the season, which I had missed. He curled up in the recliner with me and I traced the veins in his hands, wondering if he would have a similar fate. All of it was too much. The diagnosis, the ramifications, the unknowns.
I told Him I could not hold it all. I told Him I would surely fall under it’s weight. I told Him I was not strong enough.
I will carry it for you, beloved.
I don’t think I can face this life, Lord.
Breakfast had to be made and laundry had to be washed. Third grade homework had to be helped and hugs had to be given at bedtime. Life was marching forward but I didn’t think I could join the parade.
I told Him I didn’t have the courage to put two feet on the floor. I told Him I wasn’t brave enough to even put one foot in front of the other. I told Him this life would be easier under the covers.
You have much life, good life, left to live, child. I have plans for you.
But you have to choose.
I opened my Bible to Deuteronomy 30. It wasn’t a random turn of the page. This passage had made an appearance in my quiet time more often than not of late, revealed to me in a way that can only be attributed to the gentle guidance of the Holy Spirit.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
-Deuteronomy 30:19-20
Choose life. Those two words came careening off the pages of hope to comfort and to convict. I had a choice. One way promised fear and discontent, the other promised hope and reward.
For whatever it is that you think you can’t do, can’t carry, or can’t face, God offers another way. His way is marked with devotion and obedience, but it is paved with freedom. You have a choice.
Choose life, warriors.
Until tomorrow, you are being covered in my prayers.
I can so relate to this post, Heather! I, too, have a recliner where a lot of my devotions were written as I sat in pain. God has taken me from that place which now is me Bethel. In either place – a place of pain or a place of deliverance, I, too, will praise His Name! His grace is sufficient!
Denise, yes! Even though I hope to never sit in that thing again, when I look back upon my time of recovery, I see how God was shaping me for what was to come. I was just looking through our She Speaks conference handouts and saw this quote by Emily Wierenga: “Our suffering is the key which unlocks the door to the glory of God.” How very true this is.