That's how I often felt. Even as I started regaining my strengths (physical, emotional, spiritual, mental...), I still couldn't do so many of the things that I wanted. I remember standing at my kitchen window watching as a newly married couple, workers in the hospital, made their tired way back to their little cabin, happy but exhausted after the trip back from their honeymoon. My first reaction was to send one of my kids out to invite them to come over for supper after they'd rested. They wouldn't have to cook and would have more time to recuperate before going to work the next day. I stood there watching them, with tears raining down my cheeks...because I knew I couldn't do it.
I gradually started taking up some of my former activities, but never with the same intensity, and always trying to remain balanced. Lying in bed one morning, I was trying to decide whether to do something or not (can't remember what). I had just read Philippians 4:13, but in another version. This one didn't stop at "all things", but said, "I can do all the things that He asks me to..." I suddenly felt Jesus again at the foot of my bed. He said, "I'm asking you to rest."
One day Germán made a very telling comment. He said, "I'm really so sorry to see you like this...but it's nice to have you home more often." That simple sentence really made an impression!
Of necessity, our family started making the priority changes that would help us all work together and become closer. I was able to do quite a bit, as long as I measured my strength and spaced my activities with enough rest periods. Even so, during the next year I would sometimes get depressed, thinking that I would never really be able to help my husband in whatever ministries God had for us.
But God knew otherwise! Reading a verse in the Bible, it jumped out at me, with neon lights, and filled me with gratitude. Revelation 3:8 says, "I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name."
God would use me somehow, somewhere, in something! In spite of my limitations...that makes sense, because MY limitations don't limit God in the least! And a door that no one could shut. Besides that, He emphasized to me again that He was perfectly aware of my lack of strength. (Just in case I'd forgotten!)
In my next post I'd like to share another poem with you, written right after this verse became part of my life. I hope you'll join me!
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I only now realized it was September 11th! Some of you have already read my blog, but for those who haven't, here's the poem I wrote soon after that awful historic event.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
What were you trying to buy when wholesale, indiscriminate evil exploded into the air,
saturated with victim-innocence and terrorist-guilt?
Death?
Fool! Everyone has already bought his death many times over with his own sin .
We needed not your sin to make us die.
What have you done?
What were you trying to buy? Life?...for yourself, in Paradise?
Fool, again! Only one person could ever buy life with His death.
Gloat not over our grief, for you have been cheated!
You wanted to wrench open a pit from which your hatred and chaos
would spill out and strangle us.
Instead, out of the searing wound flow the pain, with prayer and patriotism;
the sorrow, with serenity and steadfastness;
the heartbreak, with healing and hope.
You wanted the sores you inflicted to ooze anguish, dread and despair.
Instead, they are closing over with cleansing calm and compassion.
You drooled in savage anticipation of draping our nation's coffin
with the skull and crossbones.
Instead, you must gnash your teeth as you watch us cover it proudly
with the Stars and Stripes. (Oh say, can you see?)
You tensed your soul to hear desperate dirges and defeated death chants.
Instead, you must stop your ears as strains of strength echo in our hymns.
Our voices break, perhaps, but not our wills, nor our courage.
The scars you meant for ignominy
we will wear as a memorial to faith and freedom.
You laugh at the mountain of rubble.
But we will laugh last,
for what you mock is a giant anvil on which we will reshape the steel of our people,
on which God can reshape the steel of our souls.
We have one thing in common with you.
For God extends His cords of kindness and love to all.*
Our founding Fathers let themselves be drawn to Him, a firm foundation.
We must all do the same once more.
If only you had reached out and clung to Him,
He, and only He, would have given you the Paradise you sought...
the Paradise He bought...
Instead, it is He whom you've pierced most deeply.
It is He whom you've hurt most obscenely.
It is He whose heart bleeds most cruelly for His bruised and broken creatures.
And it is He who weeps, and calls out to you,
"Cain! Cain...what have you done?
Listen!
Your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground."**
Becky Rhon (Sept. 2001)
* - Hosea 11:4
** - Genesis 4:10
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