Hard and Holy things.

“Please hear me girl: the world has enough women who know how to do their hair, it needs women who know how to do hard and holy things.”

There on my smartphone I read these words on Instagram the morning of Jan 13, 2017. I snapped a screen shot so I could remember them, thinking on how much these words resonated with me.

That evening, I was in a car accident. The only way to explain what happened was it was an experience with God. I’m here only because He saved me that day. I don’t know why I was spared, when many die daily due to car accidents…but I was. Going through that accident knowing my face was gashed open, took time to heal physically. Yet my heart was what needed the most healing. My divorce was finalized two days prior and I gave my life to the Lord seven months prior. For a lack of better words, I was hurting. I needed to take the time to know God and in turn, be known by Him. In hindsight, this accident was the beginning of my story on how I found treasures in darkness – and it all started by being completely ripped open.  

Five years later.

May 4, 2022. A day that has been stuck in my mind since the day it happened. That morning wasn’t like any other morning, I had to go into work a little bit earlier and on my way I was in a car accident. Yet this time, there was no special experience or peace when it happened. It was cold, I felt panicked and immediately following it sounded like a siren was going off in my head. I thought I needed time to calm down but I could not sleep that night, or the next night, or the next night. Something didn’t feel right. My mind was racing and could not stop. That racing mind stayed with me for twenty-one months and counting. My inability to sleep was with me for twenty-one months and counting. I have averaged 3-4 hours of sleep a night in this time, somedays I got more but some days I could not sleep at all. I was confused, dizzy, lightheaded upon standing. Headaches were a normal thing now along with sensitivity to light and sounds. Ear plugs became close companions. I also had this weird spin happening in my head that felt like doom was about to set in but then the next moment, be okay.  When my head spun, I thought either this is IT for me or I’ll get through this. Many times after, I wished the worst would happen so I could finally figure out what was wrong.  

I sought help but no one had answers. I sought out care ranging from cardiologist, family doctor, physical therapist, counselor, acupuncturist, multiple chiropractors, multiple neurologists, mulitple functional neurologists, dietician and massage therapists. I started averaging ten appointments a month for over a year. I did everything from blood tests, to multiple x-rays, to MRI to CT scan and multiple “exercises” assigned from doctors. No one knew what was wrong with me and nothing seemed to help. I was prescribed countless amounts of medication from pain relievers to sleep medication to anxiety medication. I had not known anxiety until this. My emotions seemed to be more reactive rather than responsive – which was hard to face since I have had years of counseling under my belt at this point. No one could give me answers.

I was eventually told by my family care practitioner that I could find a new job that was “less stressful”. That might have been the most painful appointment with a doctor because they were essentially saying I didn’t have a problem, I had stress and I needed to learn how to handle it. This aided to me feeling like I needed to do better. I started to believe that nothing must be wrong with me and I must be making this all up. I would see a new doctor and they would get to a point in my treatment and say “you should have seen improvement by now.” That usually meant this avenue of treatment was not working. I was lost. Confused. Still not sleeping. In pain. Still dizzy and light headed and now having gastric issues.

About seventeen months into this fight, I finally reached the end of myself. I fought and pushed through as much as I could, until I could no longer. That’s when more questions came in…questions like, “Does God want goodness in my life?”  I mean, He doesn’t promise my life will be good – He promises He will work things together for good and says that every good gift is from above – but that doesn’t mean my life will be good every day. I had this thought like if I liked my hair, and He knew that, would He want to take it all away? Just to see what I do? And with that question, I knew, my heart had become bitter. Only seventeen months in at that point and my heart had become cold. This caused me to run to God yet I had no strength, so my mere small reach would have to do. I had to see once more that God, His goodness for me is promised by Jesus and Jesus is my ultimate reward. Not health. Not provision. Not warmth. We are bound to suffering here and now and if I can’t get to the part that Jesus is my reward, I will be hurt and think God left when my life doesn’t look so “good” circumstantially. Jesus is the answer to goodness in my life.

I turned to God yet again for help. After petitioning for healing, I had a dream that lead me to a specialist who was able to diagnose what was happening. I had been suffering from a traumatic brain injury. The diagnoses brought validation – something that had been missing from my story so far. It allowed me to be compassionate to myself, even when others could not understand. Things are getting better I believe, but to this day I am still healing yet needed to come to a point of acceptance over where I am today.

I’m reminded of Paul and what was penned in Acts 20:23-24, “I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

So, what’s the point of me sharing all this?

The bible is very clear with the fact that those who choose to follow God, will go through trials and tribulation. This is not for some elite few. What I have gone through is not the worst thing that could happen to someone, yet it is my tribulation and suffering. Through these past twenty-one months, I have slowly come to find the wealth of tribulation, so here’s where I’m at:

“Beloved, no longer do we have the right to define our days, times or seasons as good or bad because for us all is grace. Sometimes it’s a grace to enjoy, sometimes it’s a grace to endure and often times it’s a little of both at the same time.”

– Graham Cooke

Over this time the Lord has been working in my life. First thing He did was teach me rest. Rest as in a quietness to my soul. I found that I could be doing the most “relaxing” activity and if my mind was racing and on fire, I was robbed of rest. I needed to learn that my circumstances didn’t dictate rest, I do.

Then came freedom from my disciplines. Disciplines are simply wonderful, it’s how I’ve lived my life, but where it went wrong was my disciplines were like a formula to find God. It was a lot of work, for years…and He is not in a formula. I learned in a very crippling way that there can come a point where disciplines could no longer serve me if I look too much to the discipline.  There is nothing I need to do, pray or read in the morning to be “ready” for my day. When I wake up, I am a daughter of God. No striving needed. (Which sounds liberating yet it was a hard crawl to liberation. I am still baffled that the Lord used a physical ailment – where I could no longer do what I had done for years to connect with Him – for me to see I was working too hard.) This overwhelming pressure I put on myself, did not exist from Him. He is gentler than that. It’s a grace that allowed my own pressure to reach the end of myself.

In this time, the Lord has taken inventory of my heart and has been resetting and redefining how I see Him. This has prompted the questions, “BUT what are You really like?? What are YOU really like in sickness?”

And I’ve learned, He is gentle with me.

He is gentler than I have ever known…and I have only experienced a dip of my toe in His mass ocean of gentleness. He also gave me a partner who is so incredibly gentle and kind – he is the most gentle and tenderhearted man I have ever met. When I see him, I know this is fruit of the Lord and yet only a taste of the fullness of God’s gentle nature – and at the very same time, I’m stunned to know God must be gentler than I can ever comprehend.

I’ve learned how much I relied on my mind to serve God and be in relationship with Him – and when my mind was taken out, it really made me question the relationship. I knew how to love God with my mind, my voice, my hands, my feet…but I needed to know how to do this with just my heart. If my heart is all I have to praise with, there must not be any secret special words, melody, work or discipline… it must all be heart. I say this because I had to ask the question, “How do I love you Lord, if my brain is injured and in pain – I can’t remember or think straight. How do I love you in this state?” I wrestled with this question for over a year then started to look around… and here’s what I believe – I believe the Gospel is true for those who have intense migraines that take them completely out. I believe the Gospel is true for quadriplegics. I believe, and this one I wrestled with the most, that the Gospel is true for those who are in a vegetative state – where their heart is still beating and maybe nothing else works right – the Gospel must be true for even those. So, if my brain has been injured, I can too, set my heart to worship…in all things and through all things. His promises never change simply because my circusmstances or life conditions do.

I learned that He is the Lord who weeps with me in long suffering, He did not orchestrate this suffering and there is not a list of things I need to do for healing – I am not doing anything to keep me here. Sometimes it’s simply an affliction. Sometimes we suffer.

When I thought He left, when I couldn’t hear Him anymore or feel His presence anymore – He has sat beside me. In silence. His silence enveloped me and with God I don’t believe silence is punishment. He does not give His children the “silent treatment,” to teach us a lesson or let us know He is upset. He is not like us. This is how I know He has satisfied my soul, even in silence. He is that friend to sit with me in my pit of pain, when there are no more words that can be said. His nearness is everything and I trust He is near.

In this He is has been breaking off fear of man. When I thought He would break off that fear of man by being a “Holy Roller” or something and whaling on the floor in some meeting, but no, it came by not doing things well, with excellence, or to my own standard – because I physically could not. I’ve had to accept that I can’t care so much about what others may think, because God knows my heart and I’m doing the best I can. This is also when I leaned more (leaning on my Beloved). I wanted the leaning but this also felt crippling to me, not doing things well crippled me. The first seventeen months of this affliction, I pushed myself so hard until I could no longer…and I’ve had to be okay with where God has me. Not where I’d like to be. There is acceptance in learning to lean.  

I’ve had to dig into my character to produce hope over this because there have been days where I felt hopeless and that’s no place I wanted to stay. I’ve had to go back to believing that faith is when I believe God wants to heal me more than I want to be healed…then let the Father fight for me.

This season has marked my life with Psalm 23:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.”

These words are exactly how He has pursued me. He has hunted me down daily and my heart did not stand a chance to outrun His grace and mercy.

It’s a grace to enjoy and a grace to endure.

A mercy that stood and watched as I suffered, in sorrow. A Father watching as a child figures it out. A God of great restraint to not rush in to save, but sit with me, grieve with me – which is probably the hardest part as a parent, to not rush to save when you can – but let your children wrestle things out.

The Father prays for me daily, His commitment to me far extends my ability to follow Him.

He is the God who wept with Mary, and I know this not just because it is written in the word, but because He has wept with me.

I trust that God has been working in my life despite my hardship. I trust that He is always good, even when I don’t feel it and I don’t feel well. I can’t look back on these past months and say it was all “good” without tears because it’s been painful, yet I can still say God is good. He is always good. I trust that His promise in Romans 8:28 is still true, that He works all things together for good for those who are in Christ Jesus.

I may not understand what that looks like or how somethings must be good if that’s how it has worked out, but it’s not for me to figure out or understand. Whatever the ending, it’s all for God’s glory because that’s one thing I am confident about is this, God wants to make Jesus famous. He loves to glorify His son. This is how Paul so confidently wrote his life was worth nothing to him… laying his life down, glorified Jesus and I get the honor to do that too since I’m still here.