Receiving and Demanding

I truly do not know how I would have survived these last 10 days without you. I am grateful to the Lord that he has not called us to bear our burdens alone but has, instead, provided both His body and His spirit to sustain us here on this earth.

The next few weeks, I suspect, are going to be a time of intense battles between flesh and spirit. The Lord himself is going to be working in me all of the benefits of suffering—endurance, character, and hope. Please pray that I will not waste these days.Writing to you has been an important way in which the Lord has enabled me to take my thoughts captive during this difficult time. For this reason, I am going to continue to journal a bit about my experiences, but I am going to discontinue the mass email format.

I have been grieved over the last two days to see my heart, time and again, demanding instead of graciously receiving the support of those around me. I find myself in that strange place of both wanting the world to stop for me and fearing that it will. Truly, the condition of our hearts determines how we receive any gift from the Lord’s hand. My response reveals the sin in my heat, and I will not treat it lightly.

It is likely that there will be no medical news before May 25, at which time I return to the neurologist for another round of testing. I will reconnect with you after that testing is complete.I do plead with you to continue your powerful and effective prayers on my behalf—prayers for my body and for my spirit. I had never known the intimate comforts of Christ, the efficiency of the Body, or the clean and enduring fear of the Lord in the ways that they have been revealed to me in these last few days. So I will calm and quiet my soul again and wait upon the Lord.