It’s just about midnight and I can’t get to sleep. I’m going on several days of interrupted sleep, due to the discomfort of my leg being in a cast. A cast? Yes, a cast. I know, I can hear you saying, ” But, I thought you had breast cancer?”
I was diagnosed with breast cancer in June and I’m on the 5 year plan. But in the meantime….one more thing.
I was thrilled to start feeling so great after radiation. I didn’t pace myself and just jumped into the racing around that I have come to know an love. Within a week I could barely step down on my left foot. Six years ago I had a ruptured tendon and surgery. It decided to get fussy with me again. Quite frankly I think it’s pretty bad timing for another thing to happen to me. I have spent the better part of this week wrestling with discouragement and suffering through a new physical pain.
The frustrating thing about a cast is that you can’t slip out of it. There is no short cut, no tipping the scale towards a little more comfort. It’s there, clinging like plastic wrap to my leg. I move my toes, trying to squirm a bit, but it only reminds me that Im stuck in this thing. Period.
The good thing about the cast is that it is healing something that is injured. I don’t like the timing, the way it binds me and prohibits my normal activity…but it is serving a purpose and the purpose is good.
As I toss and turn through, I wonder if there is a correlation to this cast and my heart. A firm believer in things happening to me, so God can do something within me…I am wondering what God is getting at now. What part of my heart has he been shaping and changing through cancer? And, now, what can this cast teach me about the timing and process of healing.
We often don’t know we are injured, when the problem is within. We keep going, just like I kept going when my ankle was getting inflamed. I didn’t know. Suddenly stopped in my tracks, I had to address the issue. Maybe that is how it is in matters of the heart too. We can go through life and move past our real need for God. We have broken places, torn tendons of the heart. No one can see them, so we just keep on moving.We do pretty good, we move fairly fast, but if something is inflamed on the inside, the day will come when we are stopped in our tracks, simply because Jesus wants to heal us.
He stops us for our good, because he loves us and wants to restore every broken part of us.
Often healing brings more initial pain before we experience renewed strength. That’s where I’m at with my ankle and in matters of the heart. I’m learning that sometimes God has to immobolize part of me so he can re-set me, take the strain off what is broken, and heal me on the inside. The place only God can see.
The Lord is your Shepherd, and he makes you lie down….He restores your soul…He prepares a table for you in the middle of your problems. ( Psalm 23) As he lays us down, He loves us and is working good in us.
Here is a reminder of truth:
“He who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of his return], developing that good work, and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.” Phil 1:6 Amplified
How is that good work developed?
“Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. Let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be people perfectly and fully developed with no defects, lacking in nothing.” James 1:3-4
Things happen and God uses the trial of the “thing” to prove our faith. Maybe your problem feels alot like a cast. You can’t get out of it. There is no shaking it off, no squirming to make it move…you are immobolized by the ‘cast of your situation’ and in this place God is developing you.
This is why Scripture says to “Consider it joy, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any kind…” James 1:2
The only way I can be OK with this leg cast is to remember that it is healing something. It is making me better.
In the same way, I can be OK when my life is cast in problems and trials because I know that the problems are doing something in me. They are a force of healing too. They cause me to learn to depend on God a little more. The longer the cast is on, the stronger I become.
Where are you at today? Can you dare to believe, in the middle of discouragement, that God is working in you even through the “cast of problems”?
I’ll go try to lay my head upon the pillow one more time. My words hit the page, my heart is reminded of truth, and hopefully my body will rest in believing God is with me, even in this cast.
May you see your problems differently too.
Learning to “consider” it joy,
Debbie
Very well-said, Debbie, and very true.
Thanks Mike. Life gives us opportunities to practice the faith we proclaim to have, doesn’t it?
So touched by your post. My best friend is a 7 year ago brain cancer survivor, home schooling mom of 3 young children, wife of a busy missionary man, and has recently fallen and broken her radiation weakened neck bones. So just add a neck brace to her already dead thyroid, lousy post head radiation cancer hair, scarred neck, and poor memory to the list. Does she complain? Nope. She trusts in our Lord. And each of your quoted scriptures has been similarly meditated on as her/our encouragement and as a means of keeping our eyes focused on the Lord’s plan. We do ask “why more for her?” at times, but we try to keep our eyes lifted to Him. It was almost humorous at the hospital for her husband and I as we were thrilled that it was “only a broken neck this time”. Having the cancer death sentence for her last big hospital visit kept it all in perspective. Other visitors thought he and I were a bit looney. But she is here with her family and still has more time to raise her 3 sweet children in the Lord. So , yes, circumstances can be a downer at times, but knowing that “God’s not done yet” is such an encouragement. I continue to pray for your body to be healed and for you to get rest 😉
Wow, touching story Cheryl of someone who has really been through it, but keeps strong. We all have our own path, our own journey. My prayer is that we realize it’s a sacred road, with a path always paved by God. Even if we don’t “get” the path, He is still guiding and leading us for our good and His glory. God Bless you and your friend!
Hi Sweet Debbie,
So sorry to hear of your trial with the cast. Bad timing, but perfect in the Lord’s workings.
Do you want me to piggy back you around mt. Hermon this weekend? 🙂
I am introducing you and wondered if there was anything special you want me to say.
One question: how old were you when you came to Bakersfield?
I am so excited to see you. Arleen is coming. Hopefully we can spend some time together.
Love you,
Becky
I am so excited to see you Becky! And thrilled that Arleen will be there too….Yay! I don’t know how much walking around I’ll be doing, but I sure hope for some special time with you both. I am bringing a friend with me this weekend to help me with things and keep me company. Little did I know that there would be such good company waiting for me there! See you soon! God is always good. Cast and all….