Survival

This week has been one of the most exhausting weeks I’ve had for a while. My body pain, insomnia, and pain from my damaged organs has been nearly unbearable. I’ve done everything I can to simply survive. I’ve cut out sugar, every grain, almost all caffeine, and almost every kind of dairy. I’ve started every supplement to make up for my deficiencies, and I do an hour of yoga every day. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to…why aren’t I getting better?

How do I survive this? I’m 25, and I feel like the weight of everything I’ve gone through is too much to bear. Last night around midnight I completely broke down as my husband held me. I felt the weight of the abuse, the weight of losing my father, and the weight of all of my health issues like a 100 pound weight sitting upon my chest. I was broken, I was tired, and I just wanted a break. Where was my break? God, please, how do I survive this?

I’m 25, Jesus! I don’t want this to be how the rest of my life looks. Abba, Father, please…just help me survive…

And yet…my perfect Father doesn’t want me to simply survive. He wants me to thrive. So the question becomes: “How do I thrive during this season of my life?”

In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul writes, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced…We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10, NIV).

I have often heard the expression, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” Scripturally, this is completely inaccurate. We see the persecution of the apostles consistently repeated through the New Testament. We read stories in the Old Testament about Job and the trials that afflicted his body, family, and livelihood. We read about Joseph, who was thrown in prison for a false accusation of attempted rape of the Pharaoh’s wife. Women such as Esther, who was thrown into a position that threatened her religion. We read about Elijah, one the few remaining prophets of the Lord, who escaped being murdered by Queen Jezebel. Stories like that of Hosea, who was commanded by God to marry a prostitute who left him countless times, even to the point of having children with other men.

And yet…we see the perseverance of these servants of the Lord. We see Paul being broken out of his imprisonment over and over again, never ceasing to evangelize in Christ’s name. We see Peter and John refusing to bow down to the laws of the Sanhedrin, in order to obey Jesus’s final commandment. We see the apostle Stephen, who praised the Lord even as he was being stoned. We watch Job being blessed dozens of times over than what he had previously owned. We see Joseph rise up to be the second highest command of Egypt. We watch as Esther presents herself to her king unsummoned – an act that could have resulted in her death – only to save her Jewish race from the hands of Haman. We read about how Elijah overcame his fear as one of the last prophets, rising up to proclaim the Name of the Lord to King Ahab, who was known to be one of the most evil kings during that time. We watch Hosea welcome Gomer back repeatedly, in order to show God’s same love for Israel.

Over and over again, without fail, we watch how these men and women of the Lord not only survived, but thrived. They didn’t rely on their own strength, and they certainly were given more than they can handle on their own. They had their moments of doubt, they had their moments of grief and mourning, and they had their moments of brokenness, but they refused to allow those seasons to overcome their willingness to serve the Lord.

~whatever I walk through, wherever I am / your Name can move mountains, wherever I stand~

Oh, how I long to have this kind of faith! And so, I must. Now it is no longer a question of desire – for I certainly wish that I could give up during many of those days I spend in pain – but it is a command of obedience; a command to thrive, not survive. A command to serve the Lord in my pain – no, through my pain. Here I sit on my couch, my bones in agony as those of Job, and I make this covenant with the Lord: ”I know that you can heal me of these afflictions, but if not, I will still love and serve you, Lord. I refuse to simply survive. Now, I will thrive for your Name and your glory.”

I have been given an incredible way to reach the lonely, the lost, and the forgotten. I can use my past history of abuse to love and serve those who have endured levels of such far more than I could ever imagine. I can use the death of my father to grieve with those who are grieving from their own losses. I can use my pain and sickness to reach those who want to give up, just as I have at times, in order to encourage them that there is a purpose and plan for their lives that they can’t even begin to comprehend. No longer will I survive. I will use all of my pain to serve Him in the same way as all of those who have walked in the Name before me.

There are so many of you who are suffering more than I can try to comprehend. There are millions around the world suffering in ways I could never understand. My pain is nothing in comparison to so many on this earth. And so instead of surviving and sitting within my own suffering, I will take up my Cross and serve and love those who are hurting beyond comprehension. If you are one of those people, I truly wish to walk with you. You are not alone. You are not abandoned. In fact, you have been given a Kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28). My dear brothers and sisters, you were created to thrive…so what are you going to do about it?

So I will praise You on the mountain
I will praise You when the mountain’s in my way
You’re the summit where my feet are
So I will praise You in the valleys all the same

No less God within the shadows,
No less faithful when the night leads me astray
You’re the heavens where my heart is
In the highlands and the heartache all the same