On Sunday, Steve could not even sit up in church, and was barely able to walk after the service--a guy who just the day before, was race-walking our Labrador retriever! On Monday, I returned home from what turned out to be an outstanding day for my business to hear from the caregiver that she had to hold onto him to get him the rest of the way home up our street; and that he tried to go out onto Alessandro Blvd--our 4-lane neighborhood highway--to pick up something he saw there! Later that afternoon, Steve could barely walk as I took him for the blood and urine samples the neurologist ordered at Riverside Medical Clinic. He's been stumbling and suddenly dropping off to sleep for a week, and since Sunday I've noticed that he is leaning to the left also.
Yet Steve is not dizzy or in any pain whatsoever. So I'm upping his protein and keeping him more hydrated, good practice for both of us, and awaiting lab results for hisaappointment next week.
Larry, Steve's late brother, pictured above with their cousin from El Centro last spring.
Even though I am medically puzzled as to why I am leading my husband around by the hand, even in the house, I am not one to ask, "Why our family?" or "Why me?" because in this fallen world of sickness and death, I answer myself back pretty quickly, "why not me?" Should the suffering in life just pass me by? I think not, and in today's selection from My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers gives some powerful insights from I Corinthians 6:19:
Know ye not...that ye are not your own?
There is no such thing as a private life--'a world within a world'--for a man or woman who is brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ's sufferings. God breaks up the private life of His saints, and makes it a thoroughfare for the world on the one hand and for Himself on the other. No human being can stand that unless he is identified with Jesus Christ...
Why shouldn't we go through heartbreaks? Through these doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us fall and collapse at the first grip of pain; we sit down on the threshold of God's purpose and die away of self-pity, and all so called Christian sympathy will aid us to our death bed.
Active compassion, which every one of us can exercise, whether we are in our own trial or not, is not the subject here. Christians are called to love one another "in deed and in truth" (I John 3:18b). And James exhorts us to help others as the Lord leads (2:15-17), as did Jesus Himself, repeatedly. And His compassion is a pattern for us all.
Nor is this a demand that we not be sad about the developments in ours or a loved one's life. We are not to be beyond feeling--but we are not to be controlled or stultified by our feelings, either. We need to pray about and look at what Christ wants to accomplish in our lives through hard trials. We need to ask the Holy Spirit for discernment--and wisdom in where to go with what He tells us! I'll close with Chambers' ending statements.
He [God)]comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, and says--"Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If through a broken heart God can bring His purpose to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart.
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