I finally let myself cry today. Because the surgeries were supposed to give me my life back. Not for just a few months, but forever. I was supposed to be able to say, “Hey, look at how God led me to this doctor and how I finally got the right diagnosis and how I’m all better now! Look at how I can do all the things I used to do before all this mess started!”
So why – why – does my neck ache and my head throb? Did God let me taste those months of relief from this awful pressure only to snatch it away again? Am I like Job – being tested to see if I will curse God?
Job said, “Shall we accept only good from God and not adversity?” He also told his wife, who was ticked at God for the suffering He’d allowed, that she was “speaking as a foolish woman speaks.” This was a man who’d lost everything! Including his health.
Yesterday, I was thinking to myself about how people who mock faith in God would probably take this as a sign that God doesn’t exist – or that I am an idiot to trust that God is still in control. I was desperately asking God for something to say, to show that I still trust God and that it’s the only choice I have.
This verse popped into my head – “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26
I must have memorized it along the way somewhere. Goodness knows, I memorized a ton of scripture when I was growing up. And yet, this isn’t one I’ve repeated to myself very much – it’s not one of my “go-to” verses. Well, it wasn’t, anyway.
But do you see how much God loves me? This verse – God gave it directly to me when I so desperately needed something from him. There are tons of other verses that apply: “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness…” “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me…” “The Lord is my shepherd…” “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you…”
Those are “go-to” verses that are floating around in my head on a consistent basis. But the phrase “my flesh and my heart may fail” kept surfacing as I was praying, and I had to look it up because I didn’t know the rest. All I knew was that my flesh is failing, and my heart – my faith – is failing, too.
And this verse – it says that “God is the strength of my heart” – I don’t need to find my own strength to trust in him, he himself is my strength. And he’s also my portion. Every day, I need a certain amount of food to survive. The amount I need to live is my portion. We Americans are so used to living with very large portions. Jim Gaffigan, a comedian, jokes that people from third world countries would ask “What’s an appetizer?” and we would say, “Oh, that’s the food we eat before we eat our food. It’s supposed to make us hungry.” And then they’d ask, “What’s a dessert?” and we’d say, “Oh, that’s the food we eat after we’ve eaten our other food. Usually, we have to force it down.” American Christians seem to think that the idea of God being enough somehow includes an appetizer and a dessert. But all that excess isn’t good – all we get is a bunch of fat, unhealthy people who think they can’t live without their morning coffee or chocolate or extra cheese or whatever.
God is my portion. He is enough – my flesh may want some spiritual desserts and appetizers, but God doesn’t promise desserts and appetizers. He promised that he would be enough.
It’s that quiet voice – that whisper of love in the middle of my frantic, fearful thoughts – that reminds me how much I am loved by him. He hasn’t abandoned me. He has heard my prayers. And my flesh may fail – someday it will fail; it wasn’t designed to last forever – but God is my strength and my portion. In the good times, and the bad.
Mommy in the Mirror 