Need For Endurance to Run This Race {Life After Open-Heart Surgery}

Words that breath life cannot be birthed until they have been carried to full term and made ready to be delivered.

I've been burdened with the weight of bearing these words, but unable to bring them forth. I've been stuck and some might call it writer's block, but you'd have to consider yourself a real 'writer' to blame the block. It's more like they, the words, have been choked deep down inside me and I was too weak and weary to release them. Now, lately, they have been keeping me awake at night and I wonder if it's time to start gently labouring. To take some deep breaths and bear down in the pain and see what beauty might begin to emerge.

So, I'll take the role of midwife and speak softly and firmly to the heart and soul holding onto these words deep within and remind her to let go of the fear and with courage and love and a whole lot of brave to ease these words out and surrender them and trust.

There have been so many lessons of surrender and trust in the One who is Sovereign and breaths life into all and sustains life and is Life. But to hold onto them so tightly and refuse to let them out, well, they will only intensify the pain and not do anyone any good. The time has come to let them out into the world, wrap them up to be received, and hand them over that others can share in the blessing of the Suffering and Joy.

Five months ago today, this heart thought she was brave when she was wheeled into high-risk open-heart surgery, but coming out of it was a whole new story. For weeks after, when her body baffled even the wisest of Doctors, set-backs were relentless, and Death was a persistent knock at the door, she wanted to welcome it. And then she would remember that she had a husband and three young children and she would find that she was stuck in the middle of Living and Dying. Her husband would stand by her side and plead with her, look straight as arrows into her eyes and tell her that it's not her time for answering That Call and he firmly believed that God was not finished with her here on earth. "To live is Christ and to die is gain", she would scratch with her pencil on the clipboard when she had no voice and she would try to find a middle ground. But, with Living and Dying there is no middle ground, only Looking to Jesus so as to not grow weary and lose heart in the Living and run with endurance till we come to the end.

She knows her days, like everyone's, are numbered, but fear keeps her from, at times, living each one to the fullest. Every moment of her days she needs to surrender her life to and trust the One who knows every intimate detail of her time on this orbiting earth.

But, when Death is meddling with your Living, this trust confronts an entirely new vulnerability. She weeps in the darkness and through tears sees that it's not so much the welcoming of Death, but it's the desire for the Suffering to end. And when she keeps waking up and there is no end of Suffering on this spinning globe, she stands face to face with Grief. This Grief keeps her company for days and reminds her that Suffering is a result of Sin but at the same time this same Suffering transforms her, one degree at a time, into the very likeness of the Son of God. The One who endured Suffering for her sake and conquered Sin that she might know Life Eternal. And she learns all over again that God's glory shines brightest in her darkest days.

She's swollen with painful memories, but somewhere in the middle of Surrender and Trust is the Hope that she keeps speaking about to her own soul.

There is life to be lived,
lessons to be learned,
strength to be gained,
grace to be received,
glory to be revealed.

There are words that breath life and need to be birthed and Grace and Gospel to be spoken to her own soul to keep her moving forward with Hope in God. To prod her on to take one step more, one step more, give her faith for one step more, and with the need for endurance to run this race set before her even as it dips into deep valleys and great Suffering. For as she moves forward and along the way, she will find that Joy has been waiting for her in the midst of Suffering all along.