This is not my plan. I HAD A PLAN!

As many of you know, on Feb 9 of 2016, our lives came to a grinding halt. Gene had what was to be a routine surgery, only to come out of surgery with a paralyzed right leg. There were no surgical errors and upon extensive investigation by not a few doctors and a couple of attorneys, this one is currently being filed under: “Bad things happen to good people.”

Suddenly, the 2 days I’d taken off work to get Gene home became a week, then two and when I did return to work, I was at the hospital by 6:30 each morning so I could see how his night went and then back by 4 in the afternoon where I stayed until bedtime. Rinse,  repeat for 45 days.

I’ve always guarded my time and scheduled my time and now, all of a sudden, my time wasn’t my time anymore.

In reality, my time was never my time.  James 4:13-15 speaks beautifully, though painfully for some of us, to this issue.

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; ¹⁴ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

God doesn’t have a problem with me guarding and scheduling my time. He DOES have a problem with me squandering my time and claiming it as my very own to do with as I please, regardless of those around me who may need a minute of it. That attitude certainly often marked (and still does from time to time; I’ve certainly not “arrived”) my life.

Another attitude that marked my life (and still threatens me regularly) is that of “my plans.”

Once upon a time, “I had a plan”. {As an aside, those 4 words may among be the most damning words in our vocabulary} Perhaps you too, had a plan. What do you do when your plan differs from the plan of God?

Did God “plan” to cripple Gene? Did/does God “plan” to drive me crazy? I don’t have the theological background and knowledge to fight that one all the way out but I do know this: His plans are higher than my plans.

Isaiah 55: 8-9 says:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Psalm 115:3 says:

But our God is in heaven;
He does whatever He pleases.

Psalm 135:6 says:

Whatever the Lord pleases He does,
In heaven and in earth,
In the seas and in all deep places.

Furthermore, He has a personal plan for my life. He’s not in heaven rolling the dice to see where it lands for me. He’s not in heaven saying, “Oops, didn’t see that coming. Oh well.” He’s not in heaven saying, “That’ll teach her to mess with me.”

No, we read this in Jeremiah 29:11:

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope.”

A FUTURE AND A HOPE. That’s not the promise of a God who doesn’t care.

My life verse is found in

Psalm 138:8 “The Lord will accomplish that which concerns me…” Not that which concerns you but, that, which concerns ME.”

To reinforce that passage in my heart, I want you to imagine yourself in this conversation found in John 21. The disciples had just had breakfast by the sea with the resurrected Jesus and this is part of the conversation where Jesus restores Peter yet tells Peter of the type death he will one day die.

Peter, clearly confused by this sort of information, turns around and sees John, the beloved and asks Jesus this:

verse 21, “But Lord, what about this man?”

What was Peter saying? He was saying what you and I say more often than we’d care to admit, “That’s not fair.” “How come he/she gets to…?”

Peter had a bedazzled composition book full of rebukes directly from the lips of the Lord Jesus. DO YOU? DO I? Sadly, yes.

What circumstance in your life are you clutching in your fist and holding it up to face of Jesus and saying, “It’s not fair!” “You owe me better than this!” “You’ve seen what I’ve done for you!”

May I suggest to you, open your hand, lay that thing/person/circumstance down and accept what God knows is best for your life, no matter how painful. No matter if you’ll ever understand it. You’ll lose your mind and maybe even relationships at least and your testimony at worst, if you don’t.

The key to laying that thing/person/circumstance down at Jesus’ feet is knowing that HE IS IN CONTROL.

For those of us who are self-professed (or others-accused) control freaks, this may be one of the hardest lessons to learn: GOD IS IN CONTROL. Like it or not, that’s the way it is.

I’d like to give you a whole discourse on why He is control, how we know that He is and what our varied responses should be but I believe I can sum it up for you in one verse.

HABAKKUK 2:20 “But the Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”

We are a few days shy of being 11 months in this chair. And I am discovering all sorts of anger and resentment and pity and anger (did I mention anger?) that I thought I’d already dealt with and put away.

But here’s a thought I’m entertaining right now:

If I laid down my thoughts of resentment, pity and anger and KEPT SILENT BEFORE THE LORD, what would happen to my resentment and pity anger?

Now I’m not talking about shoving those feelings and thoughts down inside you or pretending like they’re not there.

I’m talking about acknowledging that the Sovereign God of the universe knows more than you do about the beginning, the end and the middle of your life and that He is working out His Sovereign plan through the providential events that take place in your life.

Many who will read these words may have been raised in church or have spent enough time in church to have heard about the “Sovereignty of God”; sort of a “He’s the Boss” kind of thing that I’ve already mentioned.

And I think that many of us are mostly ready to concede that. For me, the problem comes with His providence in my life. “IF GOD IS SO ALL POWERFUL AND CAN DO ANYTHING, WHY DOESN’T HE…?”, you fill in the blank.

Apparently one of the reasons He doesn’t fix…whatever you put in your blank…is because He is about the business of making you like Jesus and whatever He has ALLOWED in your life is part of that process.

Unfortunately, suffering and disappointment in this life are part of the sanctification process (that’s the process that makes our character like the character of Jesus) and is, if you are a believer, unavoidable.

Still, it’s a hard pill to swallow. That’s where I live and I’m sure many of you “live” there too.

Many of you who read this, since perhaps you’ve been raised in church, would say that the Bible is true. That’s belief. “I believe the Bible is true.”

But, do you TRUST that the Bible is true? Belief/Trust: similar words but with a very fine line between them.

When I say that I believe

Romans 8:28 “And we KNOW that ALL things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

WHAT, EXACTLY, IS HIS PURPOSE?

Verse 29 tells us: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be CONFROMED TO THE IMAGE of His Son…”

What sort of “image” was Jesus?

Two passages come to mind, Matthew 26: 39 and 42 where twice He asked the Father to let this cup pass but finished with “Not my will but, yours be done.”

And then again the example we are reminded of in Philippians 2:5-8 (The Message):

“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”

When I am presented with God’s will for my life, especially when it involves suffering, I don’t receive it gladly. I receive it because really, what choice do I have? I receive it as though it were a bed of nails and not a lap of love.

So when I am pitiful, resentful and angry, what I’m trying to learn to do in all of this is to

·     open my fist

·     lay down my stuff and

·     crawl into His lap

I think that’s what He means when He says in

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

One last thing and with this, I (sort of) close, know this: the struggle is real.

I often accompanied Gene to physical and occupational therapy. A cursory glance was all it took to realize how much better off he was than every other person in the PT room.

You may look around you and think well, I’m not as bad off as she is or as that family is. But your struggle is your struggle. Don’t discount it. Own it. Don’t ignore it. Deal with it. Learn from it. Otherwise, you may have to walk this road again.

I’m not a quick learner but there’s a passage found in Psalm 32:9 (NKJV) that says:

Do not be like the horse or like the mule,
Which have no understanding,
Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle,
Else they will not come near you.

You have a great deal to say about how God instructs you: He will gladly guide you with His eye (Psalm 32:8) or He will harness you and use bit and bridle.

I want to learn that

1.  My time is really His time

2.  The plans He has for my life are better than those I have

3.  He is really in control (whether or not I give him “permission”)

4.  The struggle, my struggle, YOUR struggle, is real

God bless you on your journey.

All scriptural passages are from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.

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Where We Are Now

Holidays and family birthdays tend to bring out the sentimental in me. When a birthday lands near a holiday, I border on becoming a nostalgic mess. Don’t even think about the dreaded combo of birthday + holiday + life changing event. Oh wait, too late; not only did I think about it, it’s where I find myself at the moment.

The inspiration for this entry was my “baby’s birthday” (you know, the last born of the family, not my “bay-bay as in, well, you know) and yes, Christmas was looming. Oddly, it’s been that way since Andy was born and as a matter of fact, played heavily into the reason he was born on Dec 17, 32 years ago.

As I recall, I had been having mild contractions all weekend and when I called the doctor-on-call to tell him so, he said that if nothing happened before then, I should meet him in the office on Monday morning. Nothing more happened so I showed up bright and early Monday morning.

After my exam he told me that things looked good and I should go back home and if he didn’t see me before, he’d induce me the next Monday; I was nearly 41 weeks pregnant, by the way.

I loved this doctor! He had been in practice for 3 months when we first visited him in 1982, after finding out I was pregnant with Hannah and I really wanted him to deliver this baby too. But when he told me to come back “next Monday”, I pointed out to him that I had 2 little ones at home and coming back “next Monday” would put me in the hospital for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and that wasn’t going to happen.

He pondered that thought and (since I wouldn’t vacate the exam room until he agreed with me) decided to send me on over to the Labor & Delivery floor and let them “break my water”. Surely, since I was so far along and “things” looked so promising, I would go right into labor. I was a pro at the Lamaze method of childbirth and felt ready to go so I hauled my massive, lumbering frame down off that exam table and off to L&D at St Mary’s Hospital I went. I don’t know who but, someone brought my stuff to the hospital and someone(s) got Luke and Hannah taken care of and I got ready to “hee-hee-whoo” my way to a quick delivery. After all, Christmas was just around the corner.

Water broken and GO! Or NO. How about a long day’s worth of Pitocin? Okay, sounds fine, how hard can that be? Well, ding-dang-it, it’s hard. It didn’t take me long going from 0 to 100 miles an hour to figure out “Hey, I’ve done the Lamaze thing twice, what have I got to prove? Hook me up to some pain killing stuff! And stat!”

So they did and as Dr. Ken Taylor (no, not the Bible guy) ordered, Joel Andrew Wood arrived in time for Dr. Taylor to be home watching his beloved Cowboys play the Dolphins! Heck, I almost made it back to my room (yes, young ones, we used to go into a sterile place to have our babies! Some of us are old like that) to watch MY beloved Wheel! {Of Fortune for you less informed.}

Two days later I was home with three wee ones under the age of five and when Christmas Eve rolled around, the family came to us. When Christmas day dawned, Luke opened his He-Man Castle and Hannah played with her kitchen for a few minutes then they went off with their dad to Mamaw and Papaw Wood’s, leaving me alone with Andy. It’s a day I’ll never forget but that’s a story for another day. Or just for him and me.

The family will come to our house again this Christmas Eve for the first time since that Christmas Eve of 1984 (as far as I can recall). And this time it’s not because there’s a newborn that’s not allowed in crowds.

It’s because of that third event, listed so many words ago: a life-changing event. Gene simply can’t easily get into other people’s homes.

If you’ve drawn breath and been in our family/friends/friends-of-friends/former friends circle, you know about our life-changing event of Feb 9, 2016. I won’t belabor that point here; read more about it on my blog and/or on Facebook. But now seemed a better time than most to update you on Gene’s status and on where he and I are in our journey to the new normal.

We were privileged to see a new (wonderful!) neurologist recently; one who didn’t make us cry and suck every ounce of hope from our veins before handing us our bill and telling us he’d see us in 3 months.

He suspects (and will further investigate) that Gene had a spinal cord stroke…look it up, it’s a real thing…which would, if true, explain his symptoms. IF that is the case, the prognosis is, brace yourself, CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT. Of course, if that’s NOT the case and it is as has been diagnosed (Guillain-Barr Syndrome), he may be “as good as he’s going to get,” quoth Neurologist #1.

We left the doc’s office pretty upbeat and neither of us cried on our way home. #win

It’s interesting how folks interpret things differently though. While I am joyful at our new (potential) diagnosis, I seem to have hit a wall in how I deal with ANY diagnosis. Gene’s attitude is really healthy. He says, “If this is the worst I ever have it, I’ve got nothing to complain about.” While true, I’ve got to tell you that it kinda’ grates my nerves a little when he says that.

Maybe I’m just a little mad at the whole deal. I’m pretty sure God got the memo I sent Him that said, “Ahem, I’d like life to be predictable and a little easy, if it’s all the same to you.”

To which He responded with His own memo that said, “Ahem, I am in heaven and I’ll do what I please, missy.” Psalm 115:3 (very loose paraphrase)

That probably sounds cruel and bossy to those of you who don’t know Him like I do and I hate that for you. For you see, I know me and I know that every now and again I need to be “put in my place” as my forebears used to say. But I also know this, every step of the way, His grace in my life has been exactly enough.

For example, tonight Gene dropped something (it doesn’t matter what, he can’t bend down to get it) for the four hundredth time (maybe it was the fourth time but, still) and I heard him grunt in anguish and frustration. Hannah and I were hip deep in a show we’d waited eons to see but I hit pause, uttered my new mantra and went to see what he needed. My new mantra, didn’t I mention that? No? It’s this:

“This is my life. It’s not going to kill me.”

I tell Gene all the time that serving him is my chief joy and it really is. But sometimes, like tonight, I say my mantra. Out loud. Multiple times. Then I go do what needs to be done to help out and then get on with life.

It wasn’t until a few hours later in bed that I heard my new mantra with fresh ears and in all seriousness, couldn’t get out of bed fast enough to come write down this diatribe, all leading to this one point:

“God’s grace in my life is exactly enough.”

And that’s how I HAVE survived and that’s how I WILL survive. Step by step, hope-by-hope, frustration-by-frustration. I don’t need a Magic 8 Ball or fate or good thoughts to direct my paths and give me the strength, stamina and hope I need. I have God’s grace. He hears me long before I utter my mantra. He knows my (finally) sitting down and my rising up for the tenth time. He understands all my crazy thoughts even far off and is very well acquainted with my ways, my words (the good, the bad, the ugly) and my wants. Putting head to pillow at the end of the day is my reminder that it was God’s grace that got me through every eye-rolling, bad-word thinking (and sometimes saying), sour attitude, hurried appointment moment that preceded it!

I've been looking for that grace-filled "Aha!" moment that would pave a smooth road for my journey but, what I've found is that God's grace is meted out for each step I take. Whether it's a pebble, boulder or jagged rock I put my foot upon, His grace comes rushing to my rescue.  

So yes, this is my life and it’s not going to kill me; not because I have a mantra. But because I have a Father who loves me. Yes, sometimes He allows difficult things to come into my life but His grace is always enough to walk WITH me THROUGH the difficult things. He’s not on the outside looking in AT me, He’s on the inside working His life out THROUGH me. And believe me, when His life is being worked out through me, you’ll know it and be glad that you were there to witness it. On the other hand…