What we can do…

As I sit to type this morning, my heart is heavy with the burden of hurts that many around me are facing… and with my own endlessly overwhelming hurts…

When I went to bed last night I was feeling so fried.  Like all of my resources were so spent, so gone, so weary. 

This morning, I opened my e-mail program to find it flooded with urgent prayer requests for a young husband, father, son, who was taken to the hospital last evening with a brain aneurism.

His name is Jeremy Rin**er.  His wife’s name is Sarah.  They have one little girl who is the two-year-old range.  This is the latest e-mail I received…

Jeremy is in extremely serious condition.  The "leak" he's had is at the base of his brain and is not typically repaired by surgery.  It is generally repaired similar to installing a stint via the artery.  They need to do many tests to determine how significant the leakage has been and how stable the artery is where the leak occurred. Any type of invasive surgery could burst the aneurysm so they are being very cautious.  He was still in and out of consciousness at 11:30pm but had lots of head pain and nausea.  If the leak continues, the brain pressure goes up and things can start shutting down, thus the potential need for a vent.

The doctor said that even if and when they can get the leak stopped, the complications from the leaked blood will create a long recovery and the recovery will be problematic.  Long road ahead.

Kendall, Sandy (his parents) and Sarah are all feeling the prayers already.  I think there were probably 30 people there when I left at 11:30.  Lots of support already and certainly the need for many, many prayers.

I know for a fact that Sarah has been a prayer Warrior for me and my family.  I ask you to pray for them today.

Then there is another single mom who is going to have surgery today to test for some cancer.

And yet another one, a sister of a friend, who is in so much pain from her marriage falling to bits at her feet…

There is my neighbor’s sister who just got her biopsy back… her cancer has returned.

… and three years after my life explosion… I still spend the day dealing with the pain of it all… the reality of the circumstances… the depths of the hurts… sometimes finding them to be deeper that my mind can even fathom.

So what are we to do?

As another friend said recently… this is life.   On her blog yesterday she told of finding out yesterday that a neighbor and a friend (two different people) have had their cancer return.

Life is full of pain.  Disappointment.  Frustration.  Fear.  Anger.  Betrayal. 

I have found that this life is also a choice.  What will we do with this pain?  What will we do with the disappointment, anger, frustration, betrayal, fears?

I’ve never found an answer outside of this one thing…

This one thing that lets me sleep at night…

Lets me have calm in the midst of hurricanes…

Did you know that the highest from of praise that there is possible here on earth is called, lamentation.

Job said… “Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him.”  (Job 13:15)

Habakkuk said…”Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines;  Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no fruit;  Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,  And there be no herd in the stalls--  Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

Graham Cooke, in his book called drawing close, says it like this,

“Lamentation is when we step into the very thing that is bothering us and worship God anyway.  It is stepping into our pain, stepping into the reality of what life is like for us.  ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,’ Job said (Job 13:15).  Here I am, Lord, a lamenting worshiper says.  Things are bad, but You are glorious, and I worship You.

Things can be grim, but God is the same.  He is as worthy of worship on our worst day as He is on our best.  Lamentation worship is about two words:  though and yet.  Though the tress are not blossoming and the fields are not producing, yet I will rejoice in You.  Lamentation is a cold-blooded act of will—pushing our emotions aside and choosing to worship.  God, knowing the trust it takes to lament, has an indescribably and indefinable way of coming and being with us when we worship in our most painful moments.  It is the most sincere form of adoration that exists, and God loves it and inhabits it.”

Though Jeremy is lying in a hospital bed with an unknown future…  I will praise You.

Though Abby, and way too many others, are facing and fighting cancer… I will praise You.

Though people betray people… and the pain doesn’t ever seem to have an end… I will praise You.

Though everything about me spins out of control… and things don’t seem to change on the outside… on the inside, I can praise You… and I can have peace.

Do you believe me? 

Try it for yourself.

Pam