we inherited our fear fairly; that doesn't mean we get to use it as a club

I've been thinking about persecution complexes in Christians in the west.

Christians have always been taught that our ‘persecution’ would take the shape of the Roman persecution of the late empire - open oppression from the authorities of the world, as described in Acts and in history books. This has driven a lot of the panic from the Christian Right about culture wars and ‘losing Christian society’.

In fact, however I think the church’s greatest temptation has been, is, and will be to be offered the whole world and lose its soul - “if you take on the power of the world, you will not die spiritually as God has claimed but will be like Him, having the power to define good and evil” - pretty much the exact same way humanity was originally persuaded to rebel against God - convincing them that they knew best.

And I firmly believe that far too many western Christians have just accepted that lie about worldly power - that forcing a largely non-Christian society into a Christian mould will make us safe, will enable our mission to the world, and will bring about the kingdom of God.

Interestingly, I am starting to believe that the reason the church has grown so much across Asia in the last fifty years even as western churches have stagnated, is because ‘Christian society’ doesn’t actually engender true faith - it’s like a shell of a creature: the living being once inhabited it, but has since moved on to something else, leaving behind only the shape of what it once was.

And I can see that our (the church’s) great sin of the 2000s will be that of omission (the things we have not done that we should have done), not commission (the things that we did that we shouldn’t have done): already we have too many people staying silent and safe when injustice and cruelty take place either at a personal level or at a societal level.

God in his Word says:

‘Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,
an endless river of righteous living.’

~ Amos 5:23-24 ~

God does not desire worship in the form of music or filled pews, but in the justice and love-for-others of his people.

This theme is frequently repeated throughout the OT prophets: Don’t just look to your own house, look to your neighbour’s house. Don’t just look out for yourself or the people with All The Things, but look out for those who have nothing - no power, no money, no means. Jesus goes on about this in the Sermon on the Mount - blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, the grieving, the lonely - and his examples through his ministry frequently elevated the acts of the poor and the weak and the helpless rather than the political leaders of the day. The two people commended for great faith were not Jewish at all, but a Roman centurion, and a Syrophoenician woman.

And yet ‘Safety and prosperity’ are the household gods of most Western Christians - the most important thing in their lives is their life and their family’s lives.

Martyrdom in other parts of the world means actually losing your job, your freedom, your life. ‘Martyrdom’ in the west happens when someone challenges your politics, or when people return your ‘Merry Christmas’ with 'Happy Holidays'.

I think we (western Christians) have become so jumpy at anything that smacks of resistance to our faith and our message, thanks to the (actual) persecution of the early church, that we’ve forgotten that our faith is validated in what we do in troubled times: and not just our own times of trouble, but in the time of others’ trouble, also.

And, yeah, the martyrs of the early church lost their lives, but they gained the whole world.

Have western Christians gained the whole world in politics and yet lost the soul of their faith: to love the world as Christ loved us?

lama sabacthani?

Right now, I feel mostly abandoned by my fellow Christians. Out on the edge, being a "social justice warrior" for the widowed, the poor, the fatherless, the alien the people of colour, the immigrant, the Muslim and Jew, the 'different'.

I know a lot of people like that, thanks to my time on the internet. No, they're not Christians, but they're still people. God still loves them and sent Jesus to die for them, and they can reject him all the way up to the point that they die, after which they face judgement. But God still loves them and wants them to know Him, and I am the messenger of that news - perhaps the only Christian in their circles, for many have been burned by the church, by religious families, by social and religious condemnation. I'm open about my faith, but not proselytising, I hope. And I hope to give them a different view of Christians to the one they were brought up with - people who said 'I can't love you because you're not as God wants you to be'. Because my view is that God says to me, "I love you, even though you're not what I want you be - yet." And he has committed to remake me to be spiritually more like him (although I resist the process a lot). But I'm not who God wants me to be - not yet. And we - He and I - are working on it, still, after forty years.

The thing is that most of my Australian Christian friends don't have the connections I do. My spiritual mentor does - her daughters are just out of school and in the arts, and are struggling with their faith and how the church has tended to approach queer peoples in the past. I'm grateful to have that; we read the bible and do a small study, and pray with each other. And I can voice my doubts to her without fearing automatic condemnation, or the standard Australian Evangelical line.

See, here's the thing: I remember a Christian friend who wouldn't donate to a group because they supported an organisation that promoted marriage equality. Would they defend gay people being targeted by bigots? I wish I could say yes, but I don't know.

I've been asked "No, where do you really come from?" many many times. And when they don't get the answer they want, people tend to keep asking until they get the admission that my family came from overseas (as compared to, say, being Australian Indigenous). The only time I remember friends stepping in were two women who'd known me for ten years at that point, and they laughed and encouraged me when I kept on obfuscating. "Sydney. Australia. Australian. Australian." One of them said, "Actually, Selina's more Australian than I am: both her parents are Australian, my dad's still British." I've never forgotten that defence and I never will. Incidentally, neither profess faith in Christ.

Would my white Christian friends intervene on my behalf if someone insulted me? Yes. Probably.

Would my white Christian friends intervene for someone else like me if someone insulted them? Maybe. I think so.

Would my white Christian friends intervene when someone generally made a blanketing comment about people like me? I don't know.

I think that's the part that's most isolating: I DON'T KNOW.

If I were in the US, I'd be an at-risk person. Low-risk, as a 'safe minority' but still at-risk of generic bigotry, rather like that New York Times editor who was told "Go back home to China" although he was born in America. That's the possibility that I'd be facing over there - insignificant compared with having a headscarf torn from me and my car stolen, or having people threaten me physically because I'm not white - but there, and while I trust that my American friends might defend me, would they do the same for someone else, someone they didn't know? Would they speak up to stop stereotyping? I don't know that, I can't trust that.

And that terrifies me.

I'm not even American. I don't have to identify with American Evangelicals, but I look at them and I wonder about Australian Evangelicals: if someone promised us No Gay Marriage, would we also flock to a banner that was held by someone who said and did terrible things, and encouraged bigots, and wouldn't defend everyone - only those who agreed with him? Is that what we've already done with the Australian Liberal Party and Nauru and the Marriage Plebiscite?

I listen to the fears my non-Christian, at-risk American friends, and I hear the silence from my Christian-identifying, voted-for-Trump American friends when they're asked to condemn the violence against individuals of colour, sexuality, and religion - or else I wade through screeds about 'unity' and 'liberals who can't accept the results' - and wonder if this is what it is to love my neighbour.

It's not wrong to love my neighbour as myself, is it? To love those who might hate me, and to be a blessing to those who might curse me, to do good to those who might do evil to me, and to pray for those who might happily see me dead? No. No, it's not. It's right to defend people regardless of their policy or politics, whether they're sinners like non-Christians or sinners like Christians.

But I'm tired, and I'm scared - for my friends-who-aren't-socially-or-evangelically-accepetable and a little for myself - and I really feel like I'm out on the edge, alone, without support from either my Australian Christian friends or my American Christian friends, both of whose silence condemns me for my 'social justice crusade'.

I'm not - I have Christ with me, giving me strength. "Inasmuch as you did for the least of those, you did for me," said Jesus.

And yet that's more intellectually known than spiritually felt at this point in time.

so, that thing happened: identity in Christ and representation

So. That thing happened with the American election.

I’m disappointed. And disturbed as the results come out of who voted for whom.

It's strange. I identify reasonably strongly with the group that's billed as being one of the key swings to support Trump: Evangelicals. I'm a self-described Australian Evangelical. For me, my faith is a very central tenet of who I am - before I'm an Australian, a woman, of Asian extract, I’m a Christian. It’s not that those other aspects of my identity don’t count – they colour my view and my perspective of the world, and I'm actually rather grateful for them - but they're pretty much subsumed in my faith.

American Evangelicals are a slightly different breed to Australian ones, and yet, on paper, we share the name and, to some extent, share the core belief: that Christ died, once for all, the righteous (Him) for the unrighteous (us) to bring us (everyone) to God.

There are clauses and conditions around that, yes: to serve God, to obey Him, to trust in Him, to do His work. That last is a high-level instruction with very little detail, and we’re knee-deep in the detail here, frequently arguing degrees. Decency, rights, sharing the world, sharing ourselves with the world...

I’m following a few American Evangelicals on social media platforms. Some of them are in the 'as bad as each other' camp, others are heavily pro-HRC. I know at least one pro-Trump Evangelical, possibly two, although the second one is keeping very mum.

This morning, the pro-HRC Evangelicals are questioning their identification with the Evangelical label – not with their faith, although that’s being tested, too – but with the organisations that have brought them to where they are. Organisations that feel they’re doing the right thing by voting for Trump. They’re asking themselves what they can do for the people who they were voting to help as much as they were voting to help themselves: for the lost and the lonely and the unlovely, for their fellow sinners (‘unrighteous’ is everyone, not just non-Christians), for their fellow strugglers in the mire of a sinful, broken world.

This morning, from what I've seen, the pro-Trump Evangelicals are defending their choices.

I wonder if I’d have been a pro-Trump Evangelical if not for the eight years I spent out of the church. I was still a Christian, still prayed to God and read the bible to gain His direction, but I couldn’t find a church fellowship that felt comfortable for me to be part of the corporate body of Christ. And in that time, I met...other people. Atheists. Agnostics. LGBT people. People whose lives were defined by daily pain. Black Americans. People outside my income bracket. People who were different to me, a middle-upperclass girl from a conservative suburb in a western country that mostly accepted her race so long as they could ask, ‘But where do really come from?’ and compliment me on how good my English was.

I met people whom I wouldn’t have met in the churches I went to, in the social circles I moved in, in the educational brackets which are my instinctive strata. And I came to understand that the world – yes, sinful and fallen and broken – is bigger than the space in which I’d been brought up. And, yes, all those people need Jesus, but many of them aren’t willing to accept him, or accept all the baggage that tends to come with the concept of the church as an organisation.

I learned that while Jesus remains the same, the manner in which he approaches people changes - gentle to the masses, healer to the wounded, challenger to the authorities of the day. Paul's approach changes too, according to who he's speaking with - a Greek to the Greeks, a Jew to the Jews – met them at their level, where they were at. His ministry is slightly different to mine – he was a preacher and a teacher. If people wouldn’t accept his message, he didn’t waste that time on them, because he still had a message to speak. But I wonder, sometimes, about the churches left behind. Not the ones who had the letters written to them so much as the ones which didn’t. The ones who quietly, faithfully toiled on in their lives, in their cities, after Paul moved on through his preaching circuit. We hear a little about them – sometimes they’re the same church that Paul is later chastising for getting it wrong – but by and large, we don’t hear from them. And Paul’s evangelism, while also being his living, breathing example in the communities where he lived, worked, and preached is focused on the verbal in his letters – because his letters are all that we have.
It’s a little ironic, perhaps, that we mostly get a preaching view of Paul from his letters, while his day to day personal interactive ministry goes unobserved, while the actions of Jesus as described by the gospel writers are as focused on the people and interaction with them as they are focused on the message He brings: that God loves them so much, He’s come down to live among them.

What is all this, apart from a trip down my psyche? I guess it’s a basis for the questions I ask myself now.

Who am I? What kind of society am I in? What kind of society do I want to live in? What kind of living am I going to do in this society I’m in? How would Jesus be reacting this morning, as a God who saw His people’s need for someone to save them from their own cruelty and stupidity and unkindness, and sent Himself down in human form to live in the fallen world, to suffer injustice and unkindness, and ultimately to die a humiliating death on their behalf?

It’s the same question that I think the HRC-Evangelicals are asking themselves this morning, as they focus not on their rights and what they stand to gain out of Trump’s presidency, but on the losses faced by other people – many of them non-Christian, many of them unsaved and unrepentant.

Who I am today has been influenced by the people I’ve met and befriended and cared for along the way. We are all sinners, but I have accepted Christ’s redemption, and that calls me to love not just my fellow Christians but those who don’t believe and may not even want to.

Love, as Jesus defined it, means putting my rights and needs behind theirs.

Yes, I could skate along with Australian (and American) Evangelicals on the easy things to be outraged about: no gay marriage, we’re a Christian country, letting <1% of the population define gender boundaries, and those refugees are probably just trying to jump the queue to get into a country where they get fed and housed on the government penny.

I could keep my head down and be fine. I’m a ‘safe minority’ with the ‘right upbringing’ who swings heteronormative and doesn’t ping anyone’s buttons. That won’t protect me from men who think they have a right to my body – both in who I choose to allow access to it and in what I choose to do with it – and it won’t protect me from the people who see white as the default and the norm and that I should go back to where I came from (at least, perhaps, until I open my mouth and speak).

Only...God didn’t save me so I could be ‘safe’. He didn’t call me to Him so I could have a peaceful and prosperous life. I can do that, sure. But that’s not the endgame God has for me.

I believe in the New Jerusalem – a place where all come to worship God - but it’s not on this Earth, and it cannot be brought in by human politics and laws. I think the reliance on human politics and laws to ‘make us a Christian nation’ is idolatry of the worst kind: the first tenet of the Christian message is that God is personal and loving and just; the second is that the flaw in our world is not in our system but in our hearts. There is no system that can fix what we are: sinners.

Our job on Earth as Christians – followers of Jesus Christ, people of God – is to tell them that God loves them no matter who they are or what they’ve done, that, yes, he is a God of change and of self-control and of new things, but those new things are worth letting go of the old. Not everyone will hear the message, or want to believe it, but we’re not responsible for that – just for making the opportunities to speak the message. And those opportunities spring out of love and friendship, not out of preaching on street corners or the sentiments of the Westboro Baptists.

How now do I tell my gay friends that God loves them when they feel His people are so unloving towards them? How now do I tell Muslims that God isn’t a distant judge but a friend and comforter in times of despair when they see the people who claim His name tar them all with the brush of hatred? How now do I say to my atheist and agnostic friends that Christians believe that all people are created equal in the eyes of God – that Christ died once for *all* - when what they see is that so many ‘Christians’ wouldn’t stand for the rights of so many to be treated with dignity as though it were a human right?

I guess I don’t. Not after this. Not in words. I can't preach the gospel until I can live it in love. That's what I have – love for my friends, love for my neighbours, love for justice, love for my enemies. That's got to come first, or I'll never get to the last.

‘Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as yourself. This sums up all the laws of Moses and the Prophets.’

I can do that, with Christ who gives me strength.

Christ give me strength to do that. Now more than ever.

blessed

I am ridiculously blessed.

I know this, but sometimes it's just nice to remember.

(Yes I am saying this as the second of a double dose of panadeine/codeine wears off. Blame it on the drugs.)

The tooth extraction went well, so far as we know. The surgeon had to do a bone graft to get the implant in and I have x-rays this morning. At 5am the next morning (right now), the pain has reduced to a dull throb, but there's no seeping blood or pus so far as I can tell - maybe it'll take a few more days?

But I am reminded of how I am surrounded by love all around me.

My stepdad drove me to the appointment. My mum picked me up. My sister was willing to divert from going directly to her evening bible study to bring me yoghurt if I wanted it. A bunch of friends - Some chronic pain sufferers, some medical professionals themselves - advised alternatives if the codeine didn't work. My uncles (doctors) are willing to prescribe me stronger stuff if I need it, but a local friend is willing to slip me some if I can't get it in a timely manner. My bible study leader texted me saying she was thinking of me and could she bring me a meal, two nearby RL friends offered errand services, and another friend is going to call tomorrow since she's in another state and can't come by for snacks and snarks. I know several people who are praying for me since they're too far away to do practical things, but if they were close by I'd probably be swimming in soup. Maybe it's just as well that they're halfway across town! And my online friends have been very supportive and encouraging through the last six months of my health-tagged postings.

I whine a lot. Over really small things. I know people who struggle through life - even unto death. Not just Cousin T, but another friend I was remembering the other day - A - who died in the late 00s of a congenital defect that shouldn't have let her survive childhood, let alone halfway through her twenties. She was also a faithful Christian and I have no doubt that she, like T, is rejoicing in a body that works as it's supposed to, doing things that she never could in life - walking, running, moving freely instead of confined to a wheelchair.

Friends of mine live with chronic pain and/or depression, illnesses that limit them - that mean they need an aide to do anything - occasionally including getting out of bed, families they can't rely on. Not all of them have the certainty of the love of those around them, let alone the certainty of God's love - this life is all they have and they will cling to it with their (in some cases literally) dying breath.

And here I sit, surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, as Paul said, many of whom I could call up and ask a favour. And that's a blessing that I frequently discount.

So, praise be to the LORD of all understanding,
You have given me grace,
You have made my spirit whole in you,
You have set who I am to be before me,
You see me in glorious perfection - washed clean of my sin
Even when I fail.
My salvation is in you;
I can't do it alone.

Praise be to the LORD of relationships,
For a family who are the truth of human family,
For friends who are the truth of human friends,
For their prayers and their concern and their love-in-action.

Praise the LORD, oh my soul.

tooth extraction tomorrow

I feel rather like I've failed at my faith this last month, not doing half of what I should have done, and doing what I should not have done.

Tomorrow, I go in for the extraction of the back molar (the 17 molar, not the one which had the root canal earlier this year - that was the 16 molar) and a possible implant root put in if the surgeon thinks it can be done. Afterwards, we'll see how everything settles - whether it's going to settle and, if so, how long. It's very much a relief - this is kind of what I've been aiming for since late February - but couldn't get the dental professionals to agree with. And even then it's just the 17 molar, not the 16, which is still not entirely 'normal'.

And I find myself thinking about trust - about trusting in God's plan for me. Which is never easy, sinful and determined as I am to live my own life.

I don't trust God very much generally; I don't have to. But these last few months, I have had to and it's been good.

Of course, it's also been easy to slip back out of it again when things level out.

I think I need to set some time aside to read the bible, pray, and take time to be quiet and still. First thing in the morning (all those early morning wake-ups) would probably be ideal...

God's will and how I don't want to do it

It's been a quiet few weeks as the issues settle down.

1. The tooth is not entirely 'healed' - it still feels a little swollen in that part of the gum, the tooth itself feels not secure, a little 'squishy' when I bite down on it.

2. The diet has helped the RHS tingling, but the swelling remains, with no indication of why it's happening.

3. About three weeks ago, I noticed a kind of grinding noise when I turned my head from side to side, like little pieces of sand or gravel rubbing against each other where my spine met my skull. There's a sensation to it; it's not painful, just...I can feel the movement, the way I can't.

4. Still getting some aches of the skull and jaw; tension in the neck, etc.

I'm seeing a chiro for #3. Not sure it's getting better. I spoke to my GP (uncle) and he indicate it was probably old age. It's a little disconcerting, though, to hear your bones (probably bones) grinding against each other - and wondering if that's why I've got the swelling in the hand and the foot - the neural/paraesthesia issue.

I'm seeing the endodontist on Monday to start dealing with the tooth that has the chronic infection above it (the 17 molar). And I'm just hoping that this time it's as pain-and-stress free as the last one wasn't. I have an appointment with an oral surgeon the week after, just in case I need the 17 removed entirely. And hopefully dealing with the 17 and the infection will end the aches in the jaw and skull (right hand side) , the swelling in my hand and foot (right hand side) will subside.

Hopefully. If it's God's will.

That's a hard thing to say. What if God's will isn't what I want? And yet, if we serve God, then His will is what we want to execute.

And speaking of God's will...

One of the things I've found in April is that it can be really easy to remember God in the little things of life, but really hard to change habits. I can remember to pray while washing the dishes or hanging out the clothes - small things to remind me to give thanks, to say sorry, to pray for people - but actually sitting down and reading the bible? Difficult. Really really difficult. As much because I fear what God has to say to me and how it will change my life.

It's a terrible cowardice. One which we all face at times; and difficult to overcome. And it kind of has to be overcome again and again and again.

I'm reading 1 Corinthians with a friend - we're studying it this year with a book by a guy called Vaughn Roberts - Pure Spirituality.

a new heaven and a new earth

I've always thought Easter is a little maligned by secular society. Christmas gets all the PR, but Easter is one of those 'fly by nights' - not a 'real holiday' at all. Then again, isn't that the primary response to the message of the cross?

This Easter, given my physical issues, I have been very very grateful for that message - the reminder that Christians, too, will be resurrected with Jesus. That if we died with him, we also will rise again with him. That these bodies are not final, that this is not all there is. It's a relief for me to think that, to carry that awareness of mortality, of a temporary existence.

On the health front, some answers, but not for the tooth.

The tingling appears related to diet - cutting out salicylates (tomatoes, onions, soy sauce, other strong-flavoured foods) has definitely helped, although having to live without the ibuprofen family of anti-inflammatories has made things more difficult since I've developed a swelling in the gum that doesn't appear to be going away.

A scan of my jaw found an abcess/chronic infection; it looks related to a tooth that had a root canal done on it fifteen years ago and hasn't given any trouble until now. The abcess might explain the swollen gum, but there's also doubts about that since the infection looks chronic - like it's been there for a while, just biding its time. My option is to get the root canal re-done, or to get it extracted. Each option has complication and issues related to it, and I need to pray for wisdom in my choices. But at least I have choices (given by a new dentist and endodontist, both of whom were a bit more helpful than my usual ones, who make me feel like I'm one in a production line).

At this point, my thought is to extract the tooth with the old root canal, clear out the infection underneath, and with that out of the way, start working out the gum swelling, the new root canal, and the physical issues that may very well be linked to the abcess. The old root canal needs to be fixed at some point; and with everything else going on, better to do it now and clear it out of the way.

What has this to do with Easter? Well, only in the sense that I spent this Easter very well aware that my body isn't working the way it should; the way I want it to. I ended up on antibiotics, and learned that I now have a limited number of 'spoons' to use in a day. I spent a lot of time trying not to fret over all the sensations in my body (and mostly failing), while cooking and preparing food that won't trigger intolerance symptoms.

And, perhaps surprisingly, giving thanks. Because I may not have perfect health anymore, but I have a sense of humour, and a house, and a family that loves me. I have a God who thought I was worth redeeming, even though I didn't naturally want to be redeemed. I have the hope of a new heaven and a new earth - of a new body that won't ever break down or fail or suffer food intolerances...

As lives go, that's pretty good. I have to learn to adjust, but, as my psychologist pointed out today, that's not a bad thing. Life is fluid, and we need to learn to live it in the now, not in the 'as it was'.

And this 'now' is not perfect, nor will ever be. So putting my faith in this rotting meatsack (thank you, Bender) is kind of pointless; it serves me well enough, so long as I'm serving the God who showed his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Happy Easter!

Isaiah 43 - they lie down, they cannot rise, and it is enough.

In the last four months my health has gone down very swiftly.

Starting with a slight swelling in my foot, working through a tooth filling gone seriously wrong, currently in a state of parasthesia (tingling and buzzing) in my right hand and right foot, and battling exhaustion, possibly due to all these issues converging together, possibly due to one of the 'nebulous' health maladies like CFS or Lyme Disease.

All the concrete tests have come back negative, and I'm struggling with my body and it's new limitations, when once I could do anything I wanted just about anytime.

It's been a rough and uncomfortable journey - not only physically, but mentally, and emotionally.

Spiritually... It's been uplifting in many ways.

I've had the call to comprehend my own mortality in the last year. Starting with my cousin T, whose last months of life were depicted in swift, sure strokes by our Creator's brush, before He took her home. An emotional and spiritual challenge for me: T was two weeks older than me and one of the people of my own age whom I admired greatly. We weren't close, but her life was a joy and a blessing, even from the distance that her energy levels required. And T was so certain of her faith, so sure in the resurrection of Jesus and of her own redemption all the way to the end. Did I carry that certainty, too?

The last few months have made me question who I am, why I'm here on this planet. It's made me understand the sinfulness of the world, and how sin has permeated everything - our broken and struggling bodies, our quenched and drowning spirits. Eternal life in these bodies would be hell, indeed. God has promised to make us anew - first spiritually, then, after death, in the new heaven and Earth that he's prepared for us.

Today's thoughts are based off the reading from my ABM Lent 2016 app:

Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
"Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise."
~ Isaiah 43:16-21 ~

Personally, I've always preferred Isaiah 40:31 "They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength..." So much more uplifting! So much more encouraging!

And yet, right now, it's harder to be uplifted and encouraged.

This passage spoke to me today.

Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old... One of the issues I'm struggling with right now is the prospect of all the things I haven't done. The things I thought I would have 'later' to do and quite possibly may not; certainly not as I imagined them. My physical strength these days is extinguished, quenched like a wick - I'm hoarding my energy to do the things that are most important right now.

I can't live in the past (and I'm going to find a psych to talk this through with); I have to look forward. And while I struggle with the loss of my physical capabilities and the prospect that this may be long-term, or even permanent, this verse reminds me that God is about to do a new thing; to make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. And I'm well aware that this 'way in the wilderness' may not necessarily be a physical improvement; that it might be a spiritual challenge to draw closer to God than I've been walking these last few years, and to meet Him in a place where I don't have the strength, but He does. I don't think that's a bad thing; I've become spiritually complacent in the last couple of years, and it's been troubling me - although not enough to do anything about it until this year.

"For I...give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise."

This has been something that I've learned in the last six months - that really hit home with T's life and her death: we are here to declare God's praise. That's all. It's a horrifying thing to someone who doesn't believe; aren't we worth more than this? But somehow, in the trembling knowledge that life is short and I may never leave the mark I wanted to leave on the world, it's enough for me to say, "I am here to declare God's praise."

I don't know if I can explain it, or if people reading this will understand, but it satisfies something in me.