[My father said after the accident] "In every day and in every way, you're getting better and better." [I did not get over paralysis] Daddy was right [though]. Every day I did get better. Maybe not on the outside but on the inside. My soul became settled. My hope became clear.
Isa 53.5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
The atonement secured for us is a healing more dramatic than that which is physical; God is interested in healing the inside of a person.
When anything hard hits, it seems like the world has changed into deep mud. You spend all of your time trying to get out of and survive the mire that has entrapped you. There is no light. It almost feels like the portion of Lord of the Rings when the two Hobbits, Sam and Frodo, are in the swamp before Mordor...the one that J.R.R Tolkien based on his war experiences. When horrible things happen this terrible gloom and oppression settles and it seems nothing will ever be better or change.
Night times are still often the worst for me and my RA. Honestly that is the worst time for anything, isn't it. That is when I feel the most despair. The "why" questions come up. The overwhelming sadness of missing things in the family, get togethers with dear friends are missed, the effort of nursing school crashing down into nothing. Despair can settle over me like a smothering cloak.
But. There is always a but. There are so many blessings around me...even if all those things listed are true. Even if they stay true most of my life, there are still so many blessings around me. God is good.
God is so good--because even though I am just suddenly sick with a chronic illness, I have a great support system. I have the ability to rest when I am so tired. God is so good. He has taken such good care of me, and I can tell changes in who I am, my very being. My thoughts are different it seems, and what I deem important is different as well. So I think that yes, every day I get better...because God is my Savior.
We do have to watch though. I get better every day when I have consistently spent time with God, and focused each day on God. The days that I do not do so are wasted days. Nothing good really comes of them, because I did not go out into my day with the idea of purposefully keeping God and what might please Him as my goal [wording similar to that of Jerry Bridges in Growing Your Faith]. I merrily went out into my day as anyone else might do (just with more limping). So focus your day on pleasing God. I find that those days in which God is naturally in my thoughts from mulling over readings or passages from the Bible are happier days, even if they are difficult in other ways.
Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 23:24 NIV
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