I miss writing but it never hurts to take some time away. It isn’t as much about rest as it is about perspective. Sure, we all get tired out. We all need time to recharge. Still, sometimes we are ready and raring to go but where we are going isn’t always where God wants us to be. Even when we are headed in the right direction, how we perceive what God is doing can be through the eyes of our own desires. Other times we perceive what is happening to us as not of God because God wouldn’t allow that to happen. Then comes the hybrid version of both, the lie we sometimes tell ourselves; we were heading in the right direction but because something unexpected or unwanted happened, evil has derailed what was once God’s plan. Our eyes still can be blinded by our world view and our understanding of how God views our world.

I thought I had it all figured out.

God and I had a deal! That’s a little misleading. I didn’t make a deal with God but rather assumed that I understood what the deal was. I would be sick, sick enough to require medical attention on a regular basis. I would attend my appointments and carry on my daily ministry despite the health issues as an example of the miraculous power of God. At every turn I would be able to say it is not my strength but rather God’s strength that allows me to do what I do to bring glory to His name. I had a great biblical example of this: …Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (NIV).

I was the perfect example of living like Paul.

Many have tried to assign an affliction to Paul. The ideas range from a person who tried to destroy his ministry to various disabilities and illnesses. I believe the thorn was purposely left without description so as to inspire all who are afflicted and are not healed to see God’s power in their time of need. That was me until it wasn’t. It was easy to push forward through the regular minor surgeries, infusions, treatments and prescriptions that were and are just a part of life until it wasn’t.

Lazy faith can grow out of my view of God.

My eyes had become blinded by my world view and my understanding of God’s view of my world. I will even go as far as to say, I had become arrogant enough to live out a parallel to Paul’s plight under my own strength. I boasted of my weakness and God’s power while I was living in my own strength. I didn’t know this at the time. I didn’t intend for it to happen. It just did. I became lazy in my faith. I didn’t rest on God’s power but lived in my own strength creating the illusion of one who fully embraced my path because God was my strength when I was weak.

I Personalitied it.

Yes, you are right, I just made the noun personality into a verb, personalitied! I used my happy go lucky, life of the party personality to create the illusion of a joyful person relying on God in the most difficult of times. I can’t help it, I am a very happy person most of the time and I am always quick with a joke or a humorous observation. I still am that person but that is me not God’s power in my weakness. Okay, some of it is. The personality God gave me is well suited for a difficult life but doing what comes naturally might look like I’m presenting God, I even believed that my actions were an illustration of God at work, but my perspective was a little out of whack.

I always won until I didn’t.

I seemed to always be able to make it far beyond what my limits should be, crash for a day or two then start all over again. My strength, my plan, my system appearing to be God’s power in my weakness. I am being a little hard on myself. I did see God’s power far beyond my strength but often I failed to recognize that it was God plus me rather than God alone which created a witness that was a little misleading.

That has changed. First, a diagnosis over two years ago of a rare neurological disease. 1-2 out of 100,000 people have CIDP but, in my mind, I was going to beat it. The statistics were in my favour. Medical intervention has halted and even repaired damage in 60% of people receiving first line treatments. When that didn’t work, I assumed that I would be part of the 20% who responded to the second line treatments. I am not. Still somewhere in my mind I could still be the happy, joking, go getter that I always was leaving a great impression of the God I serve on everyone I meet. That perception needs to change.

My power makes God look perfect in my weakness – NO

As I said before I am being very hard on myself. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. It shouldn’t, but it does. In addition to treatment resistant CIDP, I fractured a vertebra during a fall last October due to osteoporosis from Prednisone and my limited balance/weakness from CIDP. The condition I had fought so hard to overcome, won. I have been forced to change my perspective. I realized, God is doing something and I am doing my thing based on my perception of what God is doing and what He wants me to do. With a jump in my step (covering my lack of coordination) and a smile on my face (covering my pain) I have made God the God of happy people rather than the provider of strength to all who rely on Him happy or not. “My [God’s] grace is sufficient for you [me], for my [God’s alone] power is made perfect in [my willingness to show my full] weakness.”  2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (NIV and Dave Peever)