I Do Not Recommend Running From God

It's a new year, a time of new things. Over the last week God has been speaking to me about how he is doing a new thing in our family.  How we are to hold the past lightly and look to the future, for there is good things to come.  I have a renewed hope in God. For the last few weeks I have been running from Him.  You would think I would learn by now.  I buried myself in reading copious amounts of romance novels, cleaning the house and filling every spare minute of solitude with some form of entertainment to keep my mind busy and my heart disengaged.  Have you ever done that?  It is exhausting! Still Jesus pursued me, waiting quietly by my side, beckoning me to spend some time chatting with him; the ever so patient but incredibly relentless God that He is.

So I gave up running, weary from His pursuit and failing in my own strength to overcome that which threatens to take hold of my heart.  There is actually quite a list of contenders for my heart-fear, insecurity and doubt are all making a play for me, but thankfully I have already given my heart over to God.  And He is relentless in love, refusing to budge at all no matter how much I disregard Him.

So in the stillness of the moment, in the dark of the night while the house sleeps I pray.  I start with words because it's easier that way sometimes. 

'You know I love you God, but I am pretty unsure of you right now.  How can you make us do this whole surgery things again?  You need to step up because I am just not getting this whole plan you have laid out before us.  I am trying to trust you, but it is hard and I know that I can' t do it alone.  I've been trying for a few weeks now and I am a exhausted...Sam is......................Jack needs..............................Don is.....................................I am................................' and on and on I went.

Then His presence rested heavy upon my heart and I feel the lump rise in my throat, the tears sting the backs of my eyes and overflow down my cheeks. Then I have no words, just sobbing and soft groans and the words from heaven that were given to me to pray when I have none.

Time passes and the ache subsides to be replaced by a warmth that spreads from the centre of my belly like living water, washing with it's tide any of the remnants of hurt.  I feel God's peace rest upon me again and I wonder why I ran to begin with.  Why would I run from the only arms that know how to comfort my soul? 

You run because you are still human and that is OK.  There is nowhere you will run, that I will not follow.  But now that I have you back in my arms, let me lead you.  Let me show you the hidden path, that was blinded by fear and doubt. I ask you to do much that is no comfortable, much which causes you pain but there is so much you do not see.  Do you know how you make me smile, to see you endure such things for my glory, so that others may see my love reflected in your lives? Do not fear what is to come, I have it all in hand.  With great trial comes greater blessings. I love you.

In forty days Sam will be heading to the Mater Hospital for his catheter.  Plane tickets have been booked for he and I. A nights accommodation has been booked at Ronald McDonald House for the first night, before he is admitted.  It looks like we are going to have to catch a taxi from the airport with our luggage or the air train, which will be an out of pocket expense.  I am leaving behind Jack who is just beginning grade 1and my husband, who will be working.  He has to, we cannot afford to have us both there.  Rent needs to be paid, bills do not stop coming.  He also has no holidays up his sleeve as he only recently commenced this new job.  For the week that Sam is in hospital for his catheter I will sleep by his bed. And then we will hear the results from the catheter that tell us whether Sam is a candidate for the Fontan operation, the last stage of his three stage open heart operations.  Then a date will be set and we will wait close by until that time.  All the while being separated from our family.  Then Sam will be readmitted and Don and Jack will join us, because frankly we can't go through it without being together as a family (hang the fact that we cannot not afford it and my go into significant debt).  Sam will endure the surgery.  Don and Jack will head home when Sam is healing at a miraculously rapid rate, and Sam and I will follow in time ( I am hoping before Easter). And then we will come home and be a family again and enjoy all of the crazy fun things we like to do.  And then I will feel like this operation that has had us on a leash for the last four years is long gone, and it will no longer dominate our future. 

As most of you know, this blog is my head space.  A place where I can commit what is happening in my heart and head, to type and prayer.  The blog is healing for me, a place where I can share with others what is going on with us, without being a melting pot of tears explaining it all verbally. There have been a couple of times recently when I have considered closing the blog down, but I know now is not the time.  So it looks like you may have to put up with my presence in cyberspace a little longer. xx Nicole