He Maketh Me Lie Down . . .

While this illness definitely is physical and has very real symptoms, I am beginning to wonder if it is “all in my head, or my heart.” Bear with me on this one. I believe with all my heart that this affliction has the fingerprints of my loving Father all over it, and it is my head or heart that needs healing, even more so than my body.

As I look back over the years I see Him, one way or another, trying to get my attention. I am not saying we were not in a living breathing daily relationship. He has spoken volumes to me over the years; literally, I have volumes of journals filled with love letters directly from His heart to mine. No, it’s not that. It is just a sense of Him having something for me and it just being out of my grasp. Or I think I ‘get it’ only to walk away unchanged.

There were plenty of times the advice was to ‘slow down’. ‘You are doing too much’. This always confused me because it was so hard to reconcile how to be the wife, mama and manager of this home, yet slow down. During difficult pregnancies my doctors would advise me to take it easy, rest more, and stop pushing. Even when it was first discovered that I had mild adrenal fatigue years ago, the advice was the same. It never did make sense to me. I would look around me and try to figure out just what to cut out or back on. Somehow it just never made sense.

I have often felt that any of the physical afflictions the Lord has brought into my life have been hedges of sorts. Hedging me in from chasing ‘my lovers’, perhaps. Again, I sense something there, yet it is always out of my grasp.

He has now made me to lie down, literally! No choice on my part. I simply cannot push through no matter how hard I try. Not only that, I have nothing in me to try. This is when I knew He meant business. I remember laying on my bed, my mom caressing my shoulders. I just started weeping. I said, “Mom, this is serious, I can not do it anymore. I have always been able to push through, I just can’t”. She immediately sensed the seriousness of the situation. She has watched me over the years. She knows me.

He maketh me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside still waters,

He restores my soul.

He has my full attention now. I see now that I was looking in the wrong places for ‘slowing down’. I see that I was looking within myself for the answers. Yes, He has my attention, and I believe it is a deep work He is doing.

He is beginning to reveal a great many things to me that I had never seen before. They were always there, I just never saw them. Others did, just not me. This time of affliction has been and continues to be so precious.

Before I was afflicted I went astray . . .It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes. . . in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

(Ps. 119:67,71,75)

I am so excited for all He is showing me and pray I not only gain head knowledge from this experience, but deep abiding change through and through.