My "Absence"
My apologies to those who have been checking here but not finding anything new. Well, we have been under some health stress lately. Two weeks back I had a bout of malaria. I took some medication and thought I had gotten over it when I was feeling better. Then, last Wednesday, after our visitors left, I started feeling bad again. This time the malaria count had gone up. I felt bad and was unable to get out of bed for 3-4 days. Only yesterday did I feel good enough to get out of bed. I had my blood tested and I still have malaria. I am not sure what I’m going to do. One doctor suggested that I go on quinine. Another suggested that I hold on all medication and just take doxycycline for a week to give my liver a rest. I am pretty discouraged as I just do not have the energy to do anything. I just feel tired all the time.
But God is faithful. I read a passage in Lamentations 3:17 onwards and derived great encouragement from it. The writer says, ”I have been deprived of peace (health, in my case); I have forgotten what prosperity is (in my case, good health). So I say, my splendor is gone, and all that I hoped from the Lord. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. (In my case, I keep feeling that I’m not going to get over the malaria, so I’m downcast.) But the next verse says, ‘Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.’” It was as though God was speaking directly to me; he will give me the strength to get through this.
posted by Anthony Parker @ 10:52 AM
1 Comments:
At 4:32 PM,
Anonymous said…
I am SO sorry you are feeling so bad, Maureen, and have been now for quite a long time with a series of different physical infirmatives.
I have been checking your blog frequently and just happened to have come by this morning, although I've not commented anywhere (yet, anyway) because I've got a lot I've got to get starting doing here both at home and "out and about," which is very time consuming, but I just had to take the time to comment here.
I will pray that God heal you soon. I understand completely how you feel in not having the energy to "do" anything or to care for your family or anything other than rest (which is all you NEED and SHOULD be doing till you are better). I was that way, myself, for quite a long time, although my energy level did not get as low as yours is, I'm sure.
But, I was extremely limited in being able to "DO" anything and it was very disheartening, to say the least. Especially for us wives and mothers and God's servants who want so much to BE of service to eveyone around us, beginning at home.
Even after all these years of living and various trials and tribulations, I don't know that I've completely figured out why these things come to us except maybe that Satan gets a hold of us in this imperfect world and tries to thwart all we try and want to do. But, I have come to find that, in the end, even in these trials and travails, as you so eloquently point out, God sustains us, carries us and protects us and draws us even closer to Him and His loving arms in His strength when we have none.
I have always loved the end of Chapter 40 of Isaiah where he talks of even the young men growing weary and fainting, but that God shall raise them up on wings as eagles to soar. I think that sometimes that is only in our hearts and minds and souls, but not our physical bodies, perhaps.
But, I have learned those are the most important places within us we can have wings and soar like eagles. Then, even when we are low in our beds or in the hospital or alone in the middle of the night in our pain, God is with us more than ever. That is the most comforting part of all to me and I have experienced it many times.
I hope you are soon well and energetic again. I pray you will be so.
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