My Strength?

My what? My strength. How do I explain all that has happened to me these past months? Almost now a year it has been since I bothered to write for this blog. 

Much has changed. And yet…

I realize much has stayed the same.

I caught Phenomena in May and almost died in the hospital.

I wet to camp and watched children give their lives to Jesus.

I struggle with college and chemo symptoms. 

But most of all, more than what has happened to me, I have learned to be come content. Contentment is, in my opinion, much harder than being happy. Happiness is a flippant emotion. One that can be turned on and off to match my place, my mood. But contentment is harder, because it must remain through the hard and the easy stuff. I must be content with my pain, my suffering, my struggles. I must and I am.

How?

Well, I found my strength. And the best part of this strength is that, it isn't even mine. God gave it to me. All of it. He poured it into my veins and filled me to overflowing with contentment. My strength.

At first I wasn't sure just when it happened, but now I think it was some time shortly after I had gotten out of the hospital in May. I remember plugging in my headphones on a cool May afternoon and going for a walk down our long drive as I used to do almost daily before I got sick. My feet stumbled on the rocks, my legs were slow to move. And worst of all, when I got back I was sore like I had run a marathon.

I can hardly walk, I remember thinking. How will I ever finnish school? Go back to work? But it was in those heart-wrenching moments that I, at last heard the whisper. The whisper that asked, would I still love God if this is what the rest of my life looked like? As I considered for the first time what a long time disability would do to me, I realized I would die of sadness if I went on like this.

I threw my head up, right there, and through my tears declared to God that it didn't matter what the rest of my life looked like, or what He might have in store for me. That shouldn't change my loving Him as nothing I ever do changes how He loves me. 

As I swallowed the bittersweet realization, that I was free to love God and be content, and to even be happy, whenever I choose, not when the world dictated, I smiled. I laughed. God was my strength. He had been there all along, offering this to me.

I just had to be weak enough to discover my strength.