Do I fight...

I have all these bits and half-written blog entries since the last one. I am not sure if I should try to finish them, just post them, or delete them.  I do not like having so many missing days of my life just now, for if not captured then they are truly ... lost ... to me.  SIGH.

Friday last week, I was at the doctor's office.  The entire hospital system to which she is now attached has a new computer system.  So, when I took my very nervous self to the check-in counter, I was greeted with questions.  Lots of questions.  Not expecting such, my nervousness increased.  Nervousness became agitation.  Agitation became fear.  Fear became rather terse words and verbal fencing trying to cease the questions.

You see, I was not prepared for them.  And I was in an office location other than the usual one I visited with reception and admin staff I knew not .... nor were accustomed to how I am when I am there.  I did not know the woman asking the questions.  I was not prepared for them.  I did not rehearse such answers, nor did I have them written down.  The more upset I became, the more ... well, put in any negative adjective you can think of and I would not be quick to disagree.

When the doctor's nurse called me back, I was already weeping, from shame as much as fear.

Truly I was ashamed that I had no civility for the admin woman.  At least I had none past her second question about my profile.  I was ashamed at how fearful I was of what was to come.  And I was fearful that I would not make it through the appointment.

My doctor is, hands down, the best doctor I have ever seen.  She is skilled in her craft and skilled in dealing with traumatized patients.  I saw multiple doctors for four years seeking help for my problem and in one visit she had a treatment plan that worked.  She saw me, Myrtle, not my fear.  Her staff are nearly as amazing as she is.  Her nurses, I mean.  Neither of them are phased by my tears and both have as much patience as my doctor.  All three of them see my tears and shaking and near-senselessness and tell me how brave I am.

Brave???

When the nurse started asking medical history questions, my answers were as sharp as a samurai sword.   At least they were until shame smote me into silence and then more tears.  She had asked me about the surgery I had in 2009.  My first thought was:  Did I have surgery in 2009?

Anesthesia is a real problem for me.  I should remember.  I should remember surgery that was just over three years before.  I should ... shouldn't I?

I did not.  Nothing.  I found only blankness in my mind.  Today, some eight days later, still blankness.  I have no idea about the surgery.  Of course, I have not yet checked the medical history notes I have started to keep.  What matters to me, at the moment, is the blankness in an area that I had to detail five times over for the disability application and appointments just seven months ago.  I should know if and what surgery I had in 2009.

I do not.

I read this article the other day by a woman with stage 4 cancer about why she continues to fight.  In it, she has this quote from a reading from a funeral of a fellow cancer patient:

"Shall I cry out in anger, O God, because your gifts are mine but for a while?
Shall I forget the blessing of health the moment it gives way to illness and pain?
Shall I, in days of adversity, fail to recall the hours of joy and glory you once granted me?
Shall this time of darkness put out forever the glow of the light in which I once walked?
Give me the vision to see and feel, that imbedded deep in each of your gifts, is a core of eternity,
undiminished and bright, an eternity that survives the dread hours of affliction and misery."

It was not sourced, but a quick Googling led me to the author, Rabbi Morris Adler, sourced on this blog entry. His poem is much longer than the snippet quoted here.

If you had asked me, I would have guessed a mainline evangelical Christian wrote this, someone raised in the faith with at least some Calvin mixed in his theological education.  For as I once was taught, our lives are not our own, as Christians, and so our God, who is sovereign, may do with them as He pleases.  I was much surprised to learn the author is Jewish.  But I was equally surprised to learn that the poem was not about untimely illness, as one might assume given the article I was reading.

Now, I would not dare to presume to know ... these days ... what a poem means unless I wrote it.  And any poem I write I would not dare to speak its meaning.  After all, I learned Thursday that a blog entry I thought left me standing naked in front of the whole world kept its true meaning as hidden as my fear and shame and confusion would wish it to be.  And I am not sure, really, that any meaning to lines quoted caught my heart.  What leapt out at me is that they had meaning for the author and they raised a thought unrelated to her article in my mind.

Though now--in writing this--a second one comes to mind as well.

My first thought was that what we see as good is not always so.  And the good God works in our lives is not always seen as such by us.  Yes, you could think I am quoting Jeremiah 29:11-13 again.  However, I heard recently that evangelicals get that passage all wrong, but not how they get it wrong.  So, at this point, I doubt I have any clue what this passage really means:

For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Of course, it could be because I only know the passage beginning at verse 11 and ending at verse 13, yet it begins in verse 1 and finishes in verse 32, as least that little bit of the plans of the Lord.  Rather than post the entire chapter, I shall add the verse fore and aft to show the shift in context, and, therefore, a shift in meaning.

“For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’

The passage changes from a generalized truth about every believer to a part of the greater plan for all of creation.  It is God working through the ravages of sin on His people toward a savior and freedom the eternal death that we sinners chose in the garden and choose daily in our lives now.  It is a promise given to a specific people who are a part of achieving His plan for all.  His plan for me.

You could believe that I was thinking of Isaiah 55 again, since I have posted that bit of God's word often of late.  Woven through that beautiful chapter promising the efficacy of God's Word is a reminder that His ways are not as our, nor are His thoughts as ours are. But, actually, I what came to mind was Matthew 23: 27-28 (the words not the reference, which I had to look up):

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."

God has a Word for all men and for all times. At that moment, white washed tombs was a perfect Word.  It is a perfect Word still.  For God's Word accomplishes what He intends and never returns void.

I have no concrete thoughts about that poem, either the snippet I first read or its entirety.  I have no clue what the author intended or what the reader (the author of the article) found within that passage.  The poem is not really my point. Unless you take into account that my mind turned to the thought of what is good and of the perfection of God's Word.

How in the world could such an insult as calling a pharisee a white washed tomb be good?  How could it be a perfect Word?

I no longer question how the cross can be good.  Never would I choose any of the things in my life now.  Even knowing their good I would not choose them.  But the cross ... even crosses piled upon crosses ... are good.

There is a sermon that, having heard it once (online), I have listened to it more times that I can count.  I have listened to it daily. I have listened to it many times in a single day.  It is a perfect Word for me right now.  And, yes, the Psalter is in it!

In a book I am currently re-reading, a hawk spreads his wings over a pair of young griffons to comfort him.  The sight is an absurdity to those looking on, since the disproportion in size between a hawk and even a young griffon is massive.  Yet the hawk offered protection and comfort that was sure and certain and safe even if ... from the outside ... it looked futile and certain to fail against any and all assaults.  Yet the hawk was offering an external comfort for the internal fear and anguish overwhelming the griffons.  And in offering such the hawk was placing his life before theirs, placing himself between the griffons and the evil and death coming after them.  The griffons knew and understood the hawk's action and beneath his pinions they sought refuge and found peace. 

I think that looking at the cross as a place of comfort and refuge, that thinking bearing crosses as a means of our Savior bringing comfort and offering refuge, looks just as absurd.  But it is not.  I think that naming and believing crosses as evidence of God working good in a person's life sounds just as absurd.  But it is not.

The other thought I had?  Well, it relates to white washed tombs, but in another fashion.  Scholars and laymen alike can learn how speaking insults to the pharisee was a good and perfect way for Jesus to reveal the Truth to them.  It was a perfect way to speak the Gospel to the pharisees then and to the pharisees we carry around in our hearts now.  Insults so grave, so deep, so offensive are the way to speak to those trapped by the lie that the Law saves.  It does not.  It did not then. It does not now.  The Law does not save or heal or give live or sustain life or glorify life or sanctify life.  None of those things are the work of the Law.  They are the work of the Living Word and of the Holy Spirit.  They are the work of God, not man.

So, my other thought was that perhaps the reason we have 150 Psalms, the reason we have 150 prayers in the Psalter, is that God knows and understands that there are many perfect Words for many people in many places and at many times in our lives.  Throughout the Psalter are the same verses and the same refrains.  Throughout the Psalter are also wholly different verses mixed in with the same refrains.  The message of the cross is woven in threads of many colors in patterns familiar and not.  

This plethora of prayers, this over abundance of them, then made me consider why it is that some might not understand why I cherish the Psalter so deeply.  What makes sense to me may not actually make sense to another.  Not because the meaning changes from one to another, but because the presence of the cross brings its own understanding and lifts the veil from our eyes in a way nothing else does or can.

When I send psalms to others as prayers, I often will personalize them by inserting the person's name and adjusting pronouns and verb tenses as necessary.  A few times, others have done so for me.  I cherish each and every time that it happened.  Though, when I pray the Psalter myself, I never put my name in the prayers.  Sometimes it is because I dare not.  Sometimes it is because making the changes is too much of a cognitive challenge at the time.  Sometimes because so often I am not even sure what I am praying when I pray the Words.  Doing so would be absurd.

But I know that God knows.  I know the Holy Spirit takes the groanings of my heart and makes sense of them.  And I know that Jesus takes those prayers to the Father.  Never ceasing this translating and carrying of prayers.  Never ceasing!

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
Myrtle will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress,
My God, in whom I trust!"

For it is He who delivers her from the snare of the trapper
And from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover Myrtle with His pinions,
And under His wings she may seek refuge;
His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.
Myrtle will not be afraid of the terror by night,
Or of the arrow that flies by day;
Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.

A thousand may fall at Myrtle's side
And ten thousand at her right hand,
But it shall not approach her.
Myrtle will only look on with her eyes
And see the recompense of the wicked.

For Myrtle has made the LORD, her refuge,
Even the Most High, her dwelling place.
No evil will befall her,
Nor will any plague come near her tent.

For He will give His angels charge concerning Myrtle,
To guard her in all her ways.
They will bear Myrtle up in their hands,
That she does not strike her foot against a stone.
She will tread upon the lion and cobra,
The young lion and the serpent she will trample down.

"Because Myrtle has loved Me, therefore I will deliver her;
I will set her securely on high, because she has known My name.
"Myrtle will call upon Me, and I will answer her;
I will be with Myrtle in trouble;
I will rescue her and honor her.
"With a long life I will satisfy Myrtle
And let her see My salvation."

~Psalm 91 (NASB 1977)

In the sermon linked above, titled "How He Longs to Gather You," the English Standard Version is read,  In that translation, the word "pinions" is retained, whereas in the New International Version, so popular these days, the word is translated "feathers."

The perfect Word.  Pinions are not just any feathers, but rather very specific feathers.  Pinions are the outer feathers of a bird's wings.  They are the flight feathers.  They are the literal and figurative representation of freedom.  For to pinion a bird is to remove or bind the wing feathers to prevent flight.  To pinion is also to restrain or immobilize a person by binding the arms.  To pinion is to bind fast or hold down.  To pinion is to shackle.

The fall pinioned us.  Our foe pinions us.  Satan.  The World. Our very flesh.  We are bound and shackled.  Or rather we would be save for the fact that Jesus Christ takes us into Himself, gives us His very body and blood, that we might be rescued, that we might have the refuge of knowing that we are ever sheltered beneath His wings and on their flight we will always be carried away from our foe.  If not now, this very moment, one day it shall be so.

As to the article and my own title here ... I did ponder that I doubt I could write the same piece for my illness, for my life.  Right now, I am not fighting. I cannot.

But, even if I could, I am not sure I should.

I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!