Several days ago I was reading in John 18. This is the account of Judas betraying Christ in the garden. Peter, in his usual quick manner, took out his sword and cut off the high priests' servant's ear. In most of the great underdog-hero-type movies, this is the point where Jesus and his small band of disciples would all pull out their swords and begin to fight for their cause -- sometimes winning against all odds, sometimes not, but always leaving us with the feeling that their cause was worth fighting and dying for. Once again, Jesus' response to Peter's action forces a paradigm shift. He says, "Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Then, Jesus let them bind him up and take him away to his death.
This morning I was reading in Matthew 5, an account of the sermon on the mount. Listen to verses 11 and 12, "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad" -- What!? Are you kidding!? Why? "For great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."
God really does not fit in the box we try to keep Him in. My box has become significantly larger over the years, but I think I still try to keep Him in some sort of box -- to be able to comprehend the incomprehensible. Isaiah 55:8-9, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." God doesn't always make sense. Think of the distance between the heavens and the earth. Really stop and ponder that gap. It's huge! This represents the difference in the way God thinks and works from the way we think and work. I am so aware of my need to view life from an eternal perspective. There's something to meditate on for a good long while...
Some reading this post may know about Josh's illness. While he was in China, an old knee injury began acting up. When he returned home, his knee continued to worsen until he had to walk with a crutch. One morning he awakened and his knee was completely healed. The circumstances surrounding that healing, which I won't go into the details of now, left no doubt that it was God who healed Josh's knee. Directly after that, he began fighting an extreme case of depression that hit suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere. We dealt with this very serious depression for two weeks before it disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. His counselor suspected there was a physiologic source for the depression, and that suspicion was confirmed just a few days after the depression went away. A day or two after that, Josh was running in a race after school when he was suddenly hit with headache, dizziness, chest pain, shortness of breath, extreme weakness, etc. The headache and dizziness persisted, and over the next two weeks would progress into a neurological disorder leading to six days in the hospital, numerous tests (many quite painful), and ultimately a diagnosis of "etiology undetermined". His mystery illness has left him debilitated requiring a walker to get around the house and a wheelchair for longer distances. He is unable to use his right hand very well. He tires easily. He is beginning physical therapy and occupational therapy three times a week. It's been a tough, tough time for him and for all of us. All the doctors assure us this is not a permanent condition, and most patients make a full recovery within weeks to months.
In all this I have asked a few questions. In light of God's answer to Job, I have hesitatingly pondered the question "Why?" Why allow such a debilitating process in a boy who is so sold out to God, who touches so many lives with his love for Jesus and who has a strong desire to share that love in China. Why allow this strong, passionate Christian man to experience weakness and physical/emotional pain to this degree. But, even as I dared think these questions, I knew the answer. The answer lies in the paradigm shift. I have to change my thinking to match God's. I have to once again allow God to shatter that box. As hard as it is to watch my son struggle, to hear his walker moving across the floor, and to see his loneliness from time to time when he can't participate in life in the same way he always has, I know God has allowed this. I have already seen some good things come from it. I believe there are many more in store. So, while I do privately shed tears, I also take great comfort in the knowledge that God is very much in control. Just because I don't understand it, I can relax, and yes even rejoice.
I will leave you with this rather long writing by Josh. He wrote this shortly after getting out of the hospital. This alone is evidence of one way God is working...
One Life To Love (by Josh Hulme)
Well, I'm writing this note to just kinda reflect on everything that's happened over the last couple of months up to this moment, what God has taught me through everything as well. To tell this whole story accurately, I have to go back to last spring during baseball season. I was playing in a game against Lee's Summit out at Legacy park, when I was bulldogged twice that game. For those of you that don't know what that is, its where the runner coming home basically tackles the catcher, and its very illegal. Now, I continued to play through that game, and I even played the next game 2 days later. This was a dumb idea, but i did it anyway. Consequently, i suffered from a knee injury that would be the catalyst for a future attack.
I've noticed that in life, there are things that happen that leave us injured. Many of us just keep playing the game instead of stopping to heal the wounds life leaves on us. I would highly encourage you not to do this, because those wounds that are never completely healed are ways that Satan can gain footholds in our lives. Satan isn't going to attack you where you are strongest and most powerful, that'd be pretty dumb. No, Satan is going to find your Achilles heel and use that weak spot to bring your whole life crashing down. That's why we need the full armour of God, not just part of it, our whole lives need to be protected and covered by God's grace and power, especially our weak parts.
Well, my knee would play a similar roll in bringing down my physical being. While I was in China (we're assuming either Guiyang or Beijing), I caught a very interesting virus. This virus was a variant of the disease Guillain-Barre, and something that seemed to be relatively small would do a ton of damage. Viruses, like Satan, will find a weak spot in your body and attack that place first. Because of my injury that spring the first thing to go was my knee, and this was only the beginning. By the time I was back home in America, I had pushed through enough to seem OK, but this virus was just waiting to make its big move. In about mid-September, it once again attacked my knee to the point I couldn't walk on it, and i had to use a crutch to get around. I went to see doctors that looked at my knee, but they couldn't find the problem. I know now its because the problem wasn't in my knee, rather it was something far worse, this same little disease. Well, One day in late September, Upon waking up I found that God had healed my knee quite miraculously, but the virus wasn't gone, it just moved to another place to attack, this time it was in my head- the Limbic System. Because of this new attack, I actually entered into a state of deep depression that came on suddenly for no apparent reason, and then, 3 weeks later, it was gone just as quickly as it had come on. But still this disease wasn't done, not yet. Now it attacked me harder than it had at any other time. One day while I was running a race after school for our drug free week, my body basically shut down. I had heart palpitations, breathing difficulty, skin discoloration, weakness, a headache, nausea and dizziness. After about an hour the breathing became easier and my heart started to beat normally, and even the nausea seemed to go away, but the rest of the symptoms would remain. The next day I woke up with a splitting headache and felt incredibly weak. When i stood up to walk I got incredibly dizzy and almost collapsed. I missed that day of school and lay down, hoping to get better. Instead I actually got much worse. My symptoms continued to progress to the point where I was taken to the doctor. My first doctor had no idea what the problem was, she told me to get some rest and if the symptoms continue, come back a few days later. Well, the symptoms continued, and worsened, I had blood drawn, and then eventually was entered into the ER. During this ER visit, my right hand started shaking uncontrollably, this was a new symptom, and very strange. After many tests and still no answers, I was released from the ER and sent home with some pain medication and once again, a wish to get better. Well, I continued to get gradually worse, and by the end of that week, my right hand that had been shaking was now limp and unusable, that was followed by facial spasms as well as shaking in my left arm and legs. That Monday my doctors decided to put me as an impatient into Children's Mercy Hospital. Once in the hospital, I started to get worse and worse until I peaked on that Wednesday. The doctors ran tons of tests, but all they could find was an elevated protein level in my spine. Finally, on Friday, one crazy doctor had a hypothesis that it was a Chinese Disease related to Guillian-Barre, and he decided he wanted to treat me for it. Well, praise be to God in Heaven, the treatment worked and now today, I'm doing much better. Both of my hands work, and I'm not having any more spasms, I only have to relearn to walk through physical therapy, and in a couple of weeks I should be back to normal. Now what has God taught me through all of this? He's taught me tons but here are some of the main things. One is that He IS sovereign, He had a plan for everything that's been going on over the last few months. I've always believed God had a plan for my life, and He was in control, but what happened seemed to just not fit with everything else. I truly started to question God's timing and planning through all of this, but now I'm starting to see just how much He really is in control, and just how powerful He really is. He never once forgot about me through all of this, He never gave up on me, He always stood there, waiting with open arms, and now I know my relationship with Him will never be the same, and I as a person have been forever changed for the better.The other big thing God taught me was purpose and just... life, what its about. I sat in my home one night as I was slowly loosing the ability to use my limbs. I sat there thinking, what if this destroys me, what if I never recover, will I have lost my purpose, will China just become a dream, something I once did? But as I sat there, I realized that serving God isn't what you do, its the heart you have. I'd known this, but I guess I'd never really applied it. I think I've lived my life trying to just do as much as I can for the Kingdom of God, and not always looking at the heart behind it. And I know that if this would have caused me to never be able to return to China, I would still be able to find purpose by serving God how I could. No matter what happens God is always listening, I could still pray, I could encourage people, I could still serve God in the small things everyday, by giving glory to Him in the smallest things that I do every minute of every day. And as I looked back over what I'd done in my life, I was truly joy-filled. I had memories from China racing through my head, of little kids hugging me and jumping on me and of them hearing about Jesus for the first time in many of their lives. I know I’m not perfect, and I've not taken every chance that God has given me, but after looking at this, and seeing that I had served in at least some places, and found true purpose in life, I was truly filled with joy, and I knew that if this were to take me down, I could be happy with how I have served God.
Now that I'm recovering from this disease, even though it may recur, I am filled with more of a sense of purpose in my life. I am going to look for ways to serve God in the little things, as well as in China. To make purpose a state of heart, not a state of where i am or what I'm doing. This is what the Bible truly means when it says 'love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind'. We can't always control what happens, but we can always control how we approach it, with a heart for God, or a heart for ourselves.
Lastly, I made this video, its mostly personal, but I encourage you to put your own life story in there. Its the song by 33 Miles, One life to love, The chorus says:
You only get just one time around
You only get one shot at this One chance,
to find out The one thing that you don't wanna miss
One day when it's all said and done
I hope you see that it was enough,
this One ride, one try, one life... To love....
That's what I'm gonna leave you with. If ever you were on your death bed, was what you did enough? Because we only get one shot at this, but heaven lasts forever, eternity isn't to far away, but what we do in this time we're bound in will determine what happens then. We only have one life to love, so love how the Bible says, unconditionally, towards your Father in heaven, and allow His love to reflect through you.
Kind of People", "My Mom". He has showered me with paper flowers ever since and today made me the cutest card with a "heart tree" and these words: "nothing can stop the (picture of a heart) tree...Rosis are red. Vilites are blue. I dont car. I Love you. evin if im mad or sad. I love you. rosis are red. Vilits are blue."
