Pretty Amazing

I spent the last two days in a delirious, fever/inflammation stupor--oh, so very sick. Nausea rose up and down as if I lay not on a couch-bed of cushions, but on a sea-tossed sailing ship. My five-inches of extra padding for my couch-bed, normally exceedingly comfortable, felt as if I was on a rock, jabbing ferociously into my aching bones. Nightmares abound in such times as these, from such sickness as flu.

I cried out to God in my more coherent moments, asking Him how this could bring Him glory. How I, alone and miserable on my bed, too sick to even think properly, could bring Him glory? Is not the point of our existence to bring Him glory and honor? Have a relationship with Him?
Certainly there must be more I should do---not so much in the idea of works, but that I should bring Him more glory by being able to do more than be sick.
And yet, the answer seemingly seems to be "no". For one, it is as yet physically impossible for me to do much---and the frustration of that is nearly beyond description.
 
 I could go an volunteer at every single volunteer position I could find until I spent 16 hours a day volunteering. And it would be an honorable thing; yet to which, God or people? It would not mean that I was faithful in my heart to God. I might think I was, and everyone else might think I was; it would not necessarily be true. 
The most glory we give God is by our faith in Him, our worship of Him---and hopefully our showing others His love and helping lead them to salvation.
Our societies push that each person have something he/she attends to that is of value...but that thing of value is not always a valuable thing to God, or rather the most valuable. The most valuable thing is the relationship we have with God--it is eternal, whereas the majority of things we complete on this earth are not.

Right before my RA erupted, I thought things were going so well. (always a bad sign to be thinking that). I was working at a job in which I hoped I was showing myself to be different, showing the love of God, I was beginning to try and focus what little energy I had left on Bible studies. By all standards of the "world" and even the "Christian world" I was at a "good place". Apparently I was not in the place I should have been.

It is either easier to have faith in God during a trial, or harder. Either one clings to God all the more desperately, crying out as Peter did when sinking, or we run, scattered as the disciples were on the night He was arrested. 
It is my encouragement that the reader remains clinging to God. That the reader who has been scattered as the disciples were runs back to Him. Even "stuck" in a position of being sick and half-asleep more often than I am well, more time has been spent on knowing God. I thought my "work" for God was to be as a full-time nurse, sharing as opportunities presented themselves; now my nursing is at a volunteer position that I still cannot always attend. 
Our main "work", regardless of what our jobs and lives demand, should be God. It is really difficult, even during a trial, to give up the control of wanting to do with our lives whatever we want: have a job we want, have children if we want, have a dream car/home. We want to fill our lives with meaningless "meaningful" things, the things the world says are important. 
For me, that is what makes RA so difficult. I can sympathize with Joni Eareckson Tada to a mild extent, because much of what the world says is important is now wrenched from our grasp. 

Again, it is either easier to love God during a trial, or harder. Easier because we are so scared, so hurt, so desperate that we cry out to Him more times during the day than we otherwise had in a month. Harder, perhaps, if we are angry, still determined to do it ourselves, or...we just cannot force ourselves to pray, to pick up that Bible, to pick up that devotional, to pick up whatever it is we see and feel like there is a force-field surrounding it. I know---I've had to push through that force-field. 

Right now I can't do much in the way of works. But I can do the most important part, the part that we all tend to shuffle off to the side as we actually do works: have faith in God, glorify God, honor God. Being determined to honor God and love Him in the midst of a trial is, I hope, a good testimony towards His love and worth. For it would be indeed foolish to face a lifetime of pain and nausea, or a lifetime of paralysis in a state of love and honor for something that was not there---standing up for Him in the depths of our trials, as Paul did in dungeons, shows something pretty amazing.