I finally got an answer to a question I already knew the answer but had hoped would be different...several people told me it would be different and I let myself believe them. But it was my fault. Everything was my fault.
One person I admire and respect tells me I should just go to church and hide in the back pew. Let the Living Word work in me. Let the body and blood of Christ heal me. Another person who is greatedly admired and respected by so many I have lost count tells me that I cannot just hide in church, that I have to be a part of a community. One person I know tells me just to sit and heal, let the Living Word wash over me and the Eucharist be brought to me. Slip in. Slip out. Give it time. Another person tells me that I need to greet folk, talk to folk, and go up front to the altar because a large part of my problem is receiving the Lord's Supper in the pew. Of course, this is after hearing what a beautiful witness it is for a pastor to bring the Lord's Supper to somone, to make the time.
When I sit in a pew, it hurts, physically. The longer I sit more it hurts and the harder it is to concentrate. When I go to stand, I have to fight dizziness from the orthostatic hypotention. Plus, I have to the battle the wave of strong pain that washes over me from my arthritis stiffening up. I cannot kneel at the railing because the pain of kneeling is overwhelming and if I do actually get down, then I most definitely need people to help haul me back up. If I stand there and it takes any amount of time to work down the row of folk receiving the Eucharist, I start worrying if I will fall. My arms holding me up on the railing begin to tremble and they hurt.
But my problem is, so I have been told, that I need to just go up and receive it normally with everyone else. I hung up the phone. Sat there with hot tears streaming down my face. I do not know what is up or down, right or left. And, apparantly, it doesn't matter anymore what I do. I wll be wrong. I took more pills to make me sleep last night.
However, right now, I have to get to a bank and sign a paper and then get to a post office and sent it off to be free of my other house. Only I cannot put two feet in front of each other. I cannot lie down even without the room spinning something fierce.
I need to be clear headed so I can get to the bank tomorrow.
However...it was all my fault. How do I face that?
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2 comments:
Dear Myrtle,
I hope you are doing better now.
It seems to me that you could benefit from hearing more about what God is doing. God offers you His gifts. Whether you sit in the pew or at home. Whether you go up and remain where you are. There are many ways to receive the gifts of Christ, and no one way is "right" with the others "wrong." There is great freedom in how we can receive them. Freedom because God is sensitive to our weakness, but also freedom because He really has made us His children, His heirs.
Freedom is a tricky thing to me. I would prefer one right way. But one right way is usually a law approach. Whereas God coaxes faith--that gift that He gives us--to trust however twisty our road. First this way, then another. However our day by day decisions and situations go.
One day at a time, by the grace of God. :) Accompanied by the Spirit that dwells within us, the Word which burroughs in us, and all the saints.
Ah, Mary, I really do love your pen!
The Word that burrows in us? God coaxes faith? Twisty roads?
Just today, I was thinking, that is is probably a good thing I have been in multiple parishes in a short time because I need to see those differences to understand the freedom about which you speak and about which I am clueless.
Tuesday was so bad. The night horrible as much for how I struggled as for the shame I feel in acting out of my weakness and fears rather than faith.
I do still struggle with the answer I was given, but I also had to tuck it away until someone could help me with it. Only, the part about going forward, is really, really, really confusing to me.
A lot of the time, I get told I could do something if I really want to when I cannot, physically, and I know it well. I know that fainting or even falling at the altar will not make God love me less, but I know, no matter what anyone says, fainting or falling at the altar will be far more disruptive to the Divine Service than being served in the pew.
Before the wretched dysautnomia, I once fainted on a flight. Awaking to strange men surrounding me who were only trying to help was not an ideal situation and was quite problematic in the air. I was actually given the choice of diverting the flight to a military base and getting on the ground in about 10 minutes or soldiering on (pun intended) for the 40 minutes, I believe, it would take us to make it to our destination. No one who is lying on the floor of a puddle jumper as scared as I was should have to make that decision. But neither should all the passengers be delayed, disturbed, and disrupted because of me.
But...maybe I should be trusting that despite how I feel physically...God would keep me upright because I would be at His table?
When I did make it to my destination, I went straight to the front desk of the airline, gave the number of my flight and said I was the one on the floor, and while the sales person's eyebrows were still lost in her hair,I gave the phone number of where I was staying, the date of my return flight, and said, in no uncertain terms, that Delta had to get me back home on a real plane no matter where I had to fly for that to happen. I think, but I am not sure, I visited a northern city just to return home.
I sat on the floor today at the Post Office, not caring one bit that people stared. There is no seating there. I couldn't stand long enough for the line. As it was, the getting up and then standing for the very, very slow transaction very nearly left me lying on the floor.
Would your beloved rather someone risk fainting/falling or stay in a pew?
Am I, in sitting in the pew, telling God in no uncertain terms what He is to do?
How can a thing be right and wrong at the same time?
But, Mary, do tell me about what God is doing. I am dense about that and need such Words more than anything else!
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