So... I live here now

So life is a journey right? But sometimes with chronic pain it seems a lot easier to just stay right where you are. Because it is so hard to keep moving forward especially when every day seems the same. I'd deluded myself that hunkering down and waiting out the storm was the strong sensible thing to do. But really it was the coward's choice, the tired untrusting coward. I looked into the fiery furnace that I'd been trapped in for years and said "fine, I live here now."

I'm sure this seems really dumb to healthy people. Who would choose to stay in such a horrible place? But the thing is that choosing to stay or not has actually no impact on being able to leave. I'm waiting it out. I'm waiting for that fourth man to rescue me or for death to take me after a long life of being in there. I don't actually get to choose when I leave. So I stopped trying. 

One of the big problem is that the way out isn't labeled, or if it is it seems like a longer trip than Frodo's journey from Hobbiton to Mordor. So instead of the frantic search for the possibly non-existent exit it seemed graceful and 'above it all' to just make the most of the flames.

I like the story of Shadrach, Mechach, and Abendigo. They are thrown into the furnace for not bowing down to King Neb's idol. There is this line that moves me:

“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us[c] from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” Daniel 3: 16-18

The God we serve is able to deliver us ...But even if he does not. 

I took this to mean that I should get cozy in the furnace because God might not let me out, now at this point I'd long since stopped asking for him to take me out. (this is another entry coming in a couple days). I'd been in that fiery furnace for years and God wasn't taking my headaches away so instead of spending all my energy in trying to claw my way out of a metal room, I burrowed in for the long haul. I decided that only God's divine ability was getting me out, so I should just stop worrying about it so much.

Pastor Dickie preached about adversity a couple weeks ago and he said. "Sometimes God delivers you from the furnace but sometimes God delivers you in the furnace."

I was obviously the second. I was going to let the fire burn away my impurities and turn me into an awesome steel blade. And why not play cards while I waited. It almost seems like a legit plan as I reread what I've written so far but I wasn't in there playing cards and patiently waiting on the Lord, I was in there completely alone with no hope of getting out. I'd stopped asking God to heal me and I'd stopped looking for the way out. I'd given up on God's promises. I'd forgotten who He is.  

I'm still in there but I waiting for Him now. He's coming and I know it and when he does all glory will go to Him. It's sooooo much harder to hope than it is to give up. It was a lot easier to not care but I was just lying to myself. God was always with me and He's going to take me out of there or do something even better. 

I'm in a Bible study with my mom and Jody Allen and it brought all of these feelings out into the open (that's my least favorite place for feelings to be). We were talking about when the Israelites were wandering the Wilderness for forty years and what our own Wildernesses looked like. I said, I just live there now. But that was such a dumb thing to say. I'd missed the whole point of the Wilderness. The forty years of wandering the wilderness was not pointless. It wasn't needless torture and obvisouly, Megan, it wasn't the final destination. But I'd just been walking in circles for so long that I gave up. I pitched a tent and decided to stop journeying. I told myself that the journey was actually going to last forever and that I would neeeevvvveeerrr make it to my promised land. The road ahead didn't have an end and there was no way to go back so I moved in. But the point of the wilderness time is to grow closer to God not to ignore him. None of my wilderness time means anything if I don't let God finish it and take me to the promised land. 

It's harder since I packed my tent and started walking again. I hate walking and being outside and the sun and the path goes up the mountain and then where? There is probably another mountain and then another mountain. Just thinking about it makes me tired. But what is really great is entertaining the idea of being well again. That's a heady thought. Maybe New Daily Persistent Headache has an expiration? But even after all my writing about how I'm good now, writing that last sentence was painful and it made me roll my eyes. Apparently deciding one time to hope again doesn't change things forever.  And that leads perfectly into tomorrow's post about bitterness.

More posts coming later this week. I've opened the box of feelings and they have to go somewhere. Sorry hehe.