God in Adversity

A week ago yesterday I had neck surgery.  I had a double fusion and bone spur removal.  My neurosurgeon said that when she opened me up and started to rummage around in my cervical region she discovered I was actually in worse shape than she had originally thought.  After surgery while I was in recovery, she told Janey that she didn’t know how I was able to continue functioning; much less functioning at the level I was at.  Janey knew the answer though, God. 

In fact, God has been present through this whole situation.  You see, I’ve already had one neck fusion way back in 2001, so when my neck started to hurt strangely again in mid-2011 I did not go see a doctor.  Why?  Because I sensed I would wind up in surgery again—I do not like neck surgery. So I figured I would try yoga, or different weight-lifting exercises, plus, I was optimistic that the pain would eventually go away.  It didn’t, it just got worse.

 Anyway, after my collapse at Lowe’s and rush to the emergency room (see my entry What Happened), the ER staff conducted several tests while I was unconscious to figure out what happened.  While they never figured out what caused my collapse, they did have images showing how seriously pinched my spinal cord was. 

Once my regular doctor and a neurosurgeon I’d never met before got a hold of the ER images, they started to pursue me via phone calls to “strongly encourage” me to get one more test because things didn’t look good. I finally relented and got another MRI. Within 24 hours they had the results which, among other things, showed “spinal cord deformity.” When I heard this phrase I started to get concerned myself.  Plus, the doctors’ phone calls started up again; I was being pursued even more intensely than before. 

I was beginning to grasp the seriousness of my condition; this was not a run-of-the-mill disk rupture.  When I finally saw the neurosurgeon, she showed me my MRI images. 

I gasped. 

I’ve had a lot of medical tests over the years (I have more than one genetic defect), and many of the test results have been less than desirable, but this result actually caused me to gasp:  my spinal cord was seriously pinched in two places by bulging disks on one side of my spine and bone spurs on the other side of my spine.  The pinching was so profound that if I had anymore even minor head or neck trauma, I could be paralyzed from my neck down for the rest of my life.

You’d gasp to.

As she went on to explain my options, surgery or increasing pain and increasing risk of paralysis, my soul did not start to spin in a spiral of discouragement like it would have a few years ago.  However, she continued with her explanation by telling me I needed to stop running, not just now, pre-surgery; but most likely for the rest of my life.

 

“But…but, you don’t understand,” I said, voice stammering.  “I love to run.”

“Your spine can’t take the pounding, especially with a triple-fusion,” she responded matter-of-factly.  Doctor’s are so good with that ‘this is no big deal so just suck it up’ tone of voice.

So now, in just 15 minutes I’m seeing the danger I’m in and I’m being told to give up one of my most favorite activities. Not only that, they had begun to set the surgery date for barely a week away.  Seriously?  Just the day before I was happily running on a mulch trail engrossed in prayer. Now I’m being told walking is all I can reasonable do and in a very short time I am going to have a very serious surgery.

All of the sudden I was not having a good day!

Discouragement, and worse, is now beginning to close in.  So I silently prayed for God to stave off the encroaching darkness and to give me the courage to face the reality before me.  Oh, I also needed strong doses of peace as well.   

And God did.  He did in big ways.  Yes, I had the surgery; and yes I may never run again, but the work God is doing in my heart and the way Jesus has showed himself to me through this is mind-blowing.  The Holy Spirit is daily comforting me and I’m excited to share this with you. 

…but that will be my next entry, so please stay tuned, God is being glorified even in what appears to be a deep adversity.  The God of Light is real, so please tune in again for my next entry.

The Great Theft

I haven’t blogged for a while because our recent trials were darkening my vision; but God is patient with me and He is lightening my soul; and showing His hand of mercy at work in the tough stuff of life.

Two things I really enjoy doing are praying and running.  I’m blessed the two can be combined.  In fact, some runs are even meditative or cathartic.  In my last three runs I was able to pray and be mentally quiet at the same time as I just focused on the path in front of me listening to my footfalls.  It was really cool, because I wasn’t looking too far down the road or listening to the cacophony of civilization around me; I was just watching for my next step and enjoying the muffled thump of each foot hitting the ground.  When each run was finished, I felt physically tired but spiritually and mentally rejuvenated and revived with a deeper sense of God’s peace and joy pulsing in my soul.  But then I got into my car to drive back to the office and that’s when it happened, that’s when the Great Theft occurred.

You see, there’s construction going on plus I was bumping up against the clock. So as traffic came to a dead stop while the clock kept ticking, my impatience came roaring through all that peace and joy to again take center stage.  By the time I got back to the office I was uptight and grumpy with nary a wisp of the hard-won peace and joy remaining in my soul.

So what happened?  Why was that peace and joy so easily stolen away from me?  Several reasons, I’m sure; but the one for the moment is gross impatience.  Nothing gets my impatience bubbling like sitting still in traffic that should be moving.  Can you relate? 

Anyway, what I’m learning, besides refining my time management skills, is to preemptively prepare my soul with even more prayer as I enter into situations where I can reasonably expect to wait.  So after such a great run, as I finish my shower, I must acknowledge that I need the help of the Holy Spirit filling those darkened areas of my soul where impatience is hiding.  I don’t know where those dark areas are, but it is painfully obvious they’re there; thus, the Holy Spirit, the Great Heart-Searcher, can seek and destroy those darkened strongholds. 

Perhaps as I discipline myself to refining this prayer practice, my runs will have even more lasting benefit than just lowering blood pressure and momentarily giving my mind a rest.  Besides, who’s likely to draw people to Christ, the impatient, grumpy ball of tension; or the calm, peace-filled ball of joy?  (This is a rhetorical question that should end with “duh!”) And what’s the sense of getting all uptight over a situation I have absolutely no control of other than the way I react to it?  It is much healthier to react to an uncontrollable situation with prayerful acceptance rather than hot-headed, gasket-blowing impatience. 

So, pray on; run on! 

God, Lord, and Father

I was praying during one of my lunchtime runs a few weeks ago.  I often state two key words in my prayers.  Those two words are “God” and “Lord”.  As I curved up the concrete path leading to the former train trestle turned running/walking bridge over the Willamette River a different word popped into my mind, the word “Father”.  The impressiveness of the thought caused me to pay closer attention because I sensed it was a quiet whisper from God in regard to my prayer.  In fact, the thought was phrased more as a question rather than as a statement.

“Why don’t you ever refer to Me as Father?” 

While this may sound like a simple question, the answer is really quite complex.  There are many reasons why I’ve resisted referring to God as Father.  The reasons hover in areas such as my relationship with my earthly father, lack of trust in the God of the universe, and tainted experiences from my cult days (hence my book From Cult to Christ).  Maybe someday I’ll write a more detailed blog on these reasons, but right now I want to address this particular prayer on this particular run. 

Jesus referred to God as Father many times (too many times to list here, but you’ll find a complete list on pages 347-8 in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible).  When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He started with the words, “Our Father” (see Matthew 6:9 and Luke 11:2).  When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, His prayers were so intense with psychological stress, that He sweat drops of blood (a condition known as hematidrosis, see p. 260 of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel). But even in all this intensity, Jesus referred to God as Father (see Matthew 26:39, Mark 14:36, and Luke 22:42). 

So without waxing all-theological, what is the significance of this question I sensed in my prayer?  Biblically speaking, what is a father?  A father is someone who cares, someone who rescues, someone who’s a hero.  A father is compassionate and yet can appropriately discipline when necessary.  A father is there when you need him and even when you don’t.  A father loves and respects you.  A father also accepts you for who you are but won’t necessarily let you always stay the same, for a father is also a guide into maturity and adventure.  And, of course, a father has children. 

All of these attributes are true of God.  These are the attributes He was trying to get me to realize in my prayer.  Yes He is God, and yes He is Lord, but I can still come to this God of the universe as a Father, for He does love me and cares for me and my family.  He doesn’t sit idly by but is an active participant in my life; at least He is if I let Him. 

So now when I pray, I approach Him as my loving Father Who is extending His arms to embrace me in a big ol’ bear hug rather than approaching Him as a distant God on a distant throne with minimal care for my life.  He is God and Lord, but He is also Father, which means I can follow Jesus’ example and pray, “My Father,” and I can know that He hears me.      

God and the Ocean

I love being at the beach.  I love to hear it, see it, smell it, and even taste it via the salty air.  The ocean never ceases to amaze me and to fill me with awe.  Nothing in nature reminds me more of God than the ocean.  Even mountain ranges, as beautiful as they are, still don’t evoke the same sense of awe as the ocean.  I guess because there are so many metaphoric and symbolic connections between the ocean and God.

For instance, we can turn our back and leave the ocean, but it’s still always there.  The same is true of God, while we may turn our back on Him, He is always there.  Another thought is the expansiveness of the ocean; standing on the shore the ocean seemingly goes on forever.  God, of course, does indeed go on forever—He is the always was, always is, and always will be God.  The ocean is deep, and God is deeper still.  The ocean is powerful, and, obviously, so is God. 

There’s other symbolism reminding me of God.  Consider Jesus calming the stormy seas of Galilee (Mt. 8:23ff).  The disciples were terrified and fearful of capsizing and drowning right there and then.  Periodically, squalls would come up on unsuspecting fisherman, engulfing them in raging storms, often claiming the lives of all on board the small fishing vessels.  Matthew 8 is just such a squall. 

Adding even more intrigue to this record is the fact that Jesus is sleeping through it all.  When He was awakened by His panicked disciples, He replied, “You of little faith, why are you afraid?”  Then He did the unthinkable, He calmed the storm, a jaw-dropping experiencing for the disciples to say the least! 

Keeping this record in mind, another element of the beach, at least on this current trip, is the wind.  In fact, I ran yesterday on the beach in winds gusting up to near 60 mph, that’s some heavy wind.  And yet it was exhilarating (perhaps only runners can understand this)!  Wind is a great reminder of the Holy Spirit (see John 3:1-21).  Jesus referred to people being filled with the Holy Spirit as being similar to the wind and in Acts 2:2 the entre of the church is ushered in by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and is documented as being like a rushing wind.  Imagine the power of the Holy Spirit. 

This same Holy Spirit, with this same power, can calm the seas between our ears; so as the storms of life assail us, may we remember that just as Jesus calmed the physical storm, the indwelling Holy Spirit can calm the stormy seas in our souls. 

Running as Spiritual Discipline

AM Run

          Cold blast on my face,

                   Knocked back on my heels—awake!

                             Love the morning run.

To see the rest of the article, go to Janey's blog at www.janey-healthybalance.blogspot.com.