Still

When I came home from the salon Thursday, my eldest son said: "you look like you looked as a teenager... but better!".

Needless to say, he got the biggest brownie at dessert.

How am I doing?  Well.  Really well.  Although my medical condition has not improved, I have decided that my assessment of how I am doing is rooted more in how I am living.

In some ways, my health experience has felt like a House episode playing out over months instead of 40 minutes.  The episode isn't over yet.  The interesting thing about this condition is that, for all intents and purposes, it remains invisible and a complex mystery for the medical community to unravel.

So I'm going to let them.  Don't get me wrong, I am an active participant in pursuing my health care - I am very engaged in the process.  However, through a lengthy process, providential intervention, an amazing physician who has been actively pursuing all possibilities, and - most importantly - faith, I am finally earnestly confident in my care.

And in the waiting, the true surrender to waiting, the pivot occurred.  Peripetia happened in my heart, not in my situation.  

I am no longer analyzing, researching or assessing.  Instead, I am fascinated by where this journey has led me.  In reading In the Likeness of God, I am having revelation after revelation about the phenomenal way humans are formed.  As in the journeys I was fortunate to take in pregnancy, this illness can be an opportunity for learning, discovering and appreciating the miracle of the human body.

"Men go abroad to wonder 
at the height of mountains, 
at the huge waves of the sea, 
at the long courses of the rivers, 
at the compass of the ocean, 
at the circular motion of the stars, 
and they pass by themselves without wondering." 


~ St. Augustine.    

My perspective has also turned to the understand that there are positive effects to be celebrated even in the situations where we are - if not just seasonally - metaphorically in the dark. The study of scotobiology is the study of darkness.  It is a relatively new field of science and it "lays the foundation for understanding the importance of dark night skies, not only for humans but for all biological species."  Scotobiology is the study of the positive responses to darkness.  As described in the link, darkness is seldom absolute.

I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. ~Isaiah 45:3

This is about a new focus.

I'm not putting on the blinders.  Besides being impossible when facing physical pain, it just doesn't seem in character with my desire to be authentic.  Instead I am changing the way I look at things.  I've thought about it in the way of blurring my peripheral vision by wearing my glasses instead of my contacts.  In needing to shift focus, I need to move in a new direction... away from the unknowns and towards the known.  

As a wise mentor of mine told me yesterday morning, there is the ability to serve even in moments such as this.

This is about the kind of faith that can change your life.  This is a good thing.

Yes, I "will stil haf to wait"; all the same,
I am still seeking joy.
I am still living out my life.
I am still being used by God.
I am still.
I know He is God.