Be still and know that I am God

I am tired. I have had the opportunity to be sick in the past, but this one takes the cake. I have never felt this way and am struggling with the amount of time that I have been sick. I am very thankful that I have an employer who has been more than accommodating for the last 12 working days, and since it is now Wednesday, it will be 13 today. I don't know if it's h1n1, no one has tested me for it. I had all the right symptoms at the beginning and now am struggling with the remaining ones, fatigue and exhaustion and sometimes they feel like the same thing. Are they the same thing?

I am plodding along filling my system with steroids (21 days in total) knowing clearly what that is doing to my bones and who knows what else as well as two courses of antibiotics that will last approximately 24 days. But here's the rub, I awake and feel great. I mean like a beautiful sunny morning great and looking to enjoy the day. By the time I have completed my morning ablutions and gotten dressed, I am so tired that my entire upper body feels like it is shaking inside, what's with that?

So, like I said, I am tired. Frustrated doesn't even express how I feel being stuck here all day. My only escape is to take my daughter to work, get my timmies (which usually takes me several hours to drink) and then go and pick her up at the end of her shift.

I am preparing for my small group lessons, and my Sunday school lessons so I have something to do and they are completed, almost. Interestingly, this weeks small group lesson talks about having tribulations (that would be difficulties) and how important our attitude is to be when we experience and endure them.

I needed this lesson. It says, "count it all joy". Four words starting with count, probably meaning to "add" the benefit or learning opportunity of the circumstance to my experience. It refers to the experience itself. All, well that means every portion of this experience. Joy, meaning contentment not necessarily happiness.

And there it is, I am to be content in my experience no matter what. So, yes I am tired of this, I will be content to learn from the down time. I am ill, I will learn once again what it means to get better and to allow others the privilege to serve me. I will trust them as they treat me with kindnesses as I recover. I will seek out the benefit of just stopping and being.

"Be still and know that I am God" rings quietly in my mind. I do know, but I have not been still in a long time. I have been busy consuming time and fitting people in. I make appointments and fill my time so that there is no time for listening. I listened today.

Tuesday Musings # 49

Happy Tuesday everyone

I had an early morning appointment today and as often as I can, I listen to the satellite radio in the car particularly to hear a preacher/speaker by the name of Chuck Swindoll. Since I was in and out of the car I was only able to listen to some of hat he said.

One quote, regarding maturity, went something like this: "we need to move from thin skinned and hard hearts to thick skinned and soft hearts". The path to maturity is more than just the passage of years. It is more than just an external experience, it includes the changes that are required in the heart of every person, including me and you.

I was raised to respect my elders for they have had more life experiences than I have and when I was a youngster. Those elders remembered the first and second world wars as well as the Irish civil war and the English occupation. They had many shared memories but were they mature?

I recall the vitriolic hatred of anything British or related to the crown because of the behaviour of the members of the occupying forces which included the death of my grandfather and other atrocities. I still see no forgiveness and that too is a lack of maturity.

The wonderful thing about "Tuesday musing" is that I never plan where I will go , I hear or think something and I "allow" the keys to take me where my thoughts are to go. Maturity is eternally linked with forgiveness. If we cannot forgive, then no matter how much we posture about our so called intelligence, we are not mature and if the definition above is correct then our existence remains of thin skins and hard hearts. Now where is the love in all that?

Happy Tuesday everyone