Holding Me Up

Well y’all, today has been exactly 2 months since the world my family lives in has been turned upside down and sideways. A few days before Thanksgiving, my Daddy started experiencing some sickness that we later found out resulted from at least two major strokes, and then he fell and shattered a bone in his leg. After all of that, he had issues breathing and swallowing and eventually it became necessary for him to have a feeding tube. He developed aspiration pneumonia on top of all of that. He was essentially in the hospital for nearly a month and a half.

Let me insert here that I am still fully aware, even in the middle of this, how blessed we are. There are families all around us and all over the world who are going through things that make our trials and difficulties look like small potatoes indeed. But I thank God that he loves the members of my family and he DOES care about the details of our lives. The things that are important to us are important to Him.

This time has been extremely hard on Daddy, obviously. He has never had any real illness in his life and most everything he has had to overcome physically has been a matter of resting til he feels better. This is different. This time, getting better involves hard work, discomfort, and pain. The entire situation has been difficult for us all to wrap our heads around. We have all been emotional, fearful, tearful, thankful, frustrated, and angry many times over the course of the last two months. And, honestly, there is still a long hard road ahead.

Clearly, this situation is NOT all about me. It’s about my Daddy. He is the one who is ill, and he is the one with the big decisions to make. He must decide how hard he wants to work to try to get back to where he was physically and how much pain he wants to endure in doing so. He must decide how to use the time while he is in the bed. Will he watch TV and sleep? Or will he use the time to connect with his Heavenly Father? All I can do is offer suggestions, encouragement, and my perspective. I can empathize. But the truth is, I am NOT in his situation and I don’t know exactly what he is going through. I only know what I see, or perceive that I see, and how it affects me. I know when he is frustrated, I am frustrated because I can’t help him. I know I can’t do the work for him, and that frustrates me. I know I can’t make the decisions for him, and that is frustrating as well. We all want what is best for those we love. We want the best outcomes. And it is SO hard to sit and watch things happen, and decisions being made that run contrary to what will lead to those outcomes.

So the truth is, I have been so busy trying to support, be with, and advocate for my Daddy during his illness (along with my other responsibilities to the rest of my family and my job) that I haven’t had much time to even think about blogging. I know the Lord has been teaching me things over the past couple of years, and I have tried to share some of them with y’all, but the last two months have been especially hard. I have struggled. I kept asking the Lord what He was trying to teach me during this season. I am still not clear what it was or is. It’s like drowning and trying to juggle at the same time. Most of the time I feel like it’s a struggle just to keep my head above water, not to mention keeping all these balls I am juggling in the air. It feels like there is no time for learning anything new, or any new revelations from God. I feel like when I cry out to God I keep saying, “Lord, if you want me to see something you are gonna have to put it on a 2×4 and smack me upside the head with it, because right now I can’t see past this situation.”

I think the enemy uses situations like this to discourage us. A life-altering event will stop us in our tracks and can have the ability to completely derail us if we let it. These times are when the rubber meets the road. When we have to show ourselves and the enemy that we can OPERATE our faith, not merely own it. It’s like a muscle. We must exercise it often, even when times are relatively easy, because when we NEED it we can’t afford for it be weak and atrophied. Because when life is so heavy on our shoulders that we are not certain we can even stand under the weight of it we will need our faith and strength in the Lord to hold us up. The picture comes to my mind of Moses (Exodus 17:12-14) holding his arms up over the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites. When Moses held up his arms, the army of God prevailed, but when he lowered them the Amalekites prevailed. So Aaron and Hur brought Moses a place to sit, and they HELD his arms up for him. That’s what our faith does for us. When we have done it all in our own strength and we are completely exhausted, faith allows us to rest in the midst of the battle, and hold our arms up until we see victory.

When you are tired and feeling beat down the questions come up: Do you REALLY believe that God is your provider? Do you REALLY believe He is your healer? Do you REALLY believe that He loves you and cares about the details of your life? Do you REALLY believe that He cares about the things that are important to you? Do you REALLY believe that He gives peace? Do you? Are you acting like it?

Because let’s face it, your attitude, MY attitude, in a difficult situation truly hangs on our answers to these questions. The OUTCOME of these situations many times hinge on how we answer those questions.

In the meantime, Daddy is still having a very hard time. Please keep him in your prayers. He struggles with his faith and he struggles physically.
So far, I am keeping my head above water and most all my juggling balls in the air (I will admit, more that more than once I have dropped a few balls and they’ve gotten soaked). I am still asking the Lord what He is trying to teach me during this season (because heaven knows, I do NOT want to fail this class and have to take it over).

I very much appreciate all the prayers, messages, texts, support and encouragement our family has received during this time. And I appreciate the patience from those of you who I may not know personally, but who follow the blog. I’m going to do my best to get back to it, although I don’t know how steady the posts will be, at least for a while.  For now, “thank you” just doesn’t seem like enough.  Y’all don’t know how often you have boosted my faith and held me up during this exhausting battle.