Symptoms

I've had a thought percolating for a few days, and I've wanted to share it with you. Unfortunately, my kids don't think now is a good time for me to blog. Something about wanting breakfast. However, I really want to get this thought out there for you to be chewing on with me. . . so I think I'm going to go for it. If it seems disjointed, or cuts off abruptly, just know that I succumbed to the mother in me and decided to make the kids some toast.

A few years ago I was struggling with a different issue. This particular issue had been on the front burner of my emotions and mind for what seemed like far too long. I remember being in church one day, during worship, and begging God to take away my anger, confusion, frustration and ongoing angst over this issue. (I had been seeing a counselor for over a year at this point) As I stood there, God spoke gently to my heart, and his loving words were something like this, "My child, the pain you feel, the anger and angst and confusion, are just symptoms of the deeper problem, which is still there. If I answer your prayer and take away these symptoms, it will remove your motivation to work on the deeper problem. And if that deeper issue stays rooted in your heart, it will continue to impact and influence your life in negative ways. So, no, I will not remove your pain, angst, anger, confusion. . . yet."

It dawned on me, like the sun burning through the fog on a summer morning at the lake, that my pain was God's grace. That what I had labeled as "not good," was actually a demonstration of God's amazing goodness to me. The goodness to look at the long-term, and not just patch up my short-term.

As I've been "sitting in it" for the last couple weeks, I've come back to this idea of "symptoms." Symptoms are the things in our lives that we don't like, but which motivate us to change. I think part of the reason God is calling me to stay in this place of self-examination, and not rush off, is because I need to recognize how my symptoms truly impact my family and me. It gives me the motivation to continue doing the hard work of change.

In the last few days I've started thanking God for my symptoms, the things in my life that I usually beat myself up over - like staying up way too late surfing the internet and then being too tired in the morning to be sharp for my kids. My usual pattern is to give in to the compulsion, feel guilty about it, try harder to discipline myself not to do it, and kick myself for a few days. Lately, I've been more calm about it, looking objectively at it and saying, "Oh look, my symptoms are showing. I need to keep on the path of sitting in this emotional pain so that God can get out the ENTIRE root of this problem."

I fully believe that at the end of this stage of this journey (for the journey itself, I believe, is life) I will have hope and healing and a new way of doing daily life. As my friend Joyce said in her comment a few days ago, "Take courage, this is all 'death unto life' stuff."

Breakfast time!