It’s been a long time since I wrote my last blog. I usually stop writing it in the Spring and start again late Autumn so that I can concentrate on gardening work around the church but at the beginning of April this year, not long after gardening began in earnest, I ended up in hospital.
Following an emergency operation, I was away from church for eight weeks and had three months off work while I recovered. After that, although I was awaiting a further operation, my health gradually improved and I was able to ease myself back into some kind of normality. That final operation 5 weeks ago has meant that my life feels like it’s actually getting back on track.
While that paragraph has just condensed 6 months of my life, it doesn’t even begin to convey the spiritual journey I took in that time. This is something I’d like to share with you over the coming weeks with the hope that my experiences will be of some benefit to others who may travel down a similar path at some point on their own faith journey.
Much of my spiritual identity has often been tied up with how I can serve God. I know my salvation is in no way linked to my good works (Ephesians 2: 8-9), but in gratitude for that salvation, and because I love God, I seek to serve Him where He leads. As James (2: 26) tells us, ‘Faith without works is dead.’
In those first months of recovery, I could barely do anything. To walk five steps was nearly impossible. I lay on the settee while my sister and her family looked after me, unable to honour the roles that I usually undertook in church, roles that had previously given me a sense of worth. I have always been a bit of a Martha but I now had to learn to be more like Mary, the sister who sat at Jesus’ feet to listen to what he had to say (Luke10: 38-42).
God used this period of forced inactivity to show me it’s okay to be still (Psalm 46:10). In that stillness we can connect to Him even if everything around us feels out of control. It is God who is our refuge when we need a place of safety, our strength when we are weak, and an ever-present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46: 1). When we are racing around diligently serving God, it can be difficult to ‘hear’ His voice clearly amongst all our busyness. When we are at the top of our game, and everything is going well we don’t always acknowledge His hand in our success. But if something happens which means that all our activity has to slow down or all our successes are put on hold, then we are left with little choice but to be still and seek Him.
Even Jesus took Himself away from the crowds so that He could spend time with His Father; to hear clearly what He was saying and where He was leading (e.g. Luke 5: 16 & Luke 6: 12). Is your Father in Heaven asking YOU to take some moments away from the bustle of day-to-day life to spend time being still with Him? Or maybe you are not able to be as active as you once were. Is God calling to use some of your quiet moments to sit at His feet and listen to what He has to say? When I was laid up in hospital, anxious about not being able to run my business or serve God in practical ways, I never would have thought six months later, I would be thanking Him for using that time to remind me it’s okay to be still. Next week I’ll tell what happened when I had no words to pray but wanted to call out to Him.
Lara