Relaxing in the Clarity

I confess to coming close to the end of myself on the stress meter this week.

The intensity of the past three weeks, camped out beside the hospital bed of one very small, completely treasured little girl, watching her struggle for breath at times, scream with fear and discomfort at times, sleep feverishly at times....

Watching Kristyn struggle through, trying hard to care for herself and the child she's carrying while so beautifully, consistently ministering soothing words and presence to a frightened two year old.....

The sudden turn of events last Sunday, when we thought we were heading out of the woods, only to be faced with surgery.....

The added chaos of getting sick myself, locked away for 36 hours from the very ones I desperately wanted to be there to help, feeling helpless and alone and unable to force my body to cooperate with what absolutely needed to be done....

The sense of how long I'd been away from my responsibilities at home, and the knowledge that others were having to carry my load, knowing that, upon return there would be lots to dig out from under in terms of meetings and tasks and people to see.....

The anxiety, the unpredictability, the personal disorientation, the homesickness, the exhaustion.....

By Wednesday, it was all starting to feel so far out of my control, so far out of any zone I could contend with whatsoever, that the first waves of panic began to roll in.

What is that? It seems it sneaks up on me, always. I'm doing great, standing strong, and then, there it is. Fear. All the what ifs? All the worst case scenarios, playing themselves out like demon movies in the tired shadows of my numbed out brain. It's like I forget everything I know and start to run on everything I feel. It's as if I can't remember who I am or Whose I am. It's like my "real life" self gets swallowed up in the "crisis life" self, and I'm not even me any more.

I sat in the car that afternoon, and I couldn't drive. I'd finished a meal and was supposed to head back to the hospital. But I had to wait. Not yet. I couldn't drive safely just yet. Not with this white hot flash of unspoken horror rising up from the gut and grabbing at my throat.

They're not pretty, but experiences like these can be defining moments. Times when the rubber, or maybe it's all my preconceived Christian niceties, hit the road. Hard. And only what counts actually counts.

There's a clarity in coming to moments like that. A blue-light focus that gathers all the fibers of illuminating anythings from every corner of my life and bundles them together in one pure spot of brightness and truth.

"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love," Paul wrote to the Galatians (5:6).

"The chief purpose of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever," wrote Augustine.

"It's all Yours", I breathed into the car.

And these simple truths came to me in the moment at the end of myself. And it was enough.

Enough to remind me that no matter where I was or what I was doing, the best demonstration of my faith is my love. And no matter who was near and what they needed, I could still bring glory to my Father and enjoy Him in all His intricacies. And no matter what was going on and what may or may not be within my control or be what I did or did not desire, ultimately and forever, I had given everything all to Him, and He had every right to do anything - anything - He pleased to do with me and my life and everything that matters to me.

It wasn't an immediate lifting. More of a gradual clearing away. Over the next 12 hours or so, as I continued to pray and meditate and clarify (with the help of some good questions from a friend), I felt myself relaxing, breathing, being me again. I could relax into the clarity of what was most important to me.

Quite frankly, I do not like what God is doing in my life this past little while....not the circumstances of it anyways. But without hesitation, I love being loved and led and carried and shaped and pursued by this completely unsafe, out of the box wild and holy God I know, who meets me in the clarity of the end of myself.