These Present Sufferings

Most nights I don’t sleep very well. Some nights will be pretty good, and I’ll manage to get up to seven hours of sleep. But most aren’t like that, and many nights I end up getting only two or four. Sometimes it’s none.

Now, before I solicit tons of advice – some medical, some emotional, some spiritual – let me just set the record straight up front. I’ve done prescriptions, I’ve done (and am doing) herbs, I’m too happy and too mellow to be depressed or stressed, I don’t have any underlying medical conditions, and I’m abiding in Christ. It’s just a thing I go through. It’s a thing I’ve gone through my whole life. My mom went through it, and my sons go through it, though to a lesser degree. 

Today didn’t get off to a good start. I had slept only enough during the night to constitute a catnap, and I had to be up at 6 a.m. On a good day, I’m allergic to 6 a.m. On a bad day, I practically need an Epi pen to get myself going. It’s rough.

That was only the beginning of my marathon day. The first half of the day was spent wallowing in self-pity and caffeine. The second half of the day was spent working in fast-forward so the day would just go away. 

That brings me here. Call me slow, but late it in the day it occurred to me that my sleep deprivation had been a major joy-killer today, especially at the front end of a day that’s busy enough to land me on my back side. God and I have had some serious talks about my sleeplessness. He hasn’t told me why I go through this. But He has told me how to go through it.

“Rejoice always!” He commands me (1 Thessalonians 5:16). The Lord knows I don’t want to rejoice right now. I just want to sleep. But Proverbs 17:22 tells me to put on a happy face and get over myself because otherwise my health will really suffer: “A joyful heart is good medicine; a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” I’ll take fatigue over crushed bones any day, so I’ll force myself to smile through it all. 

Knowing that a smile on the outside can change how I feel inside, I’ve always approached sleeplessness as we should approach fasting. Quite by divine providence, my quiet time this morning was spent in Matthew 6, where Jesus gives us instructions on fasting. “When you fast,” He told us, “do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (FYI: I substitute makeup for oil, just in case you’re wondering.)

Then He tells me to “give thanks in everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, emphasis mine). Everything, Lord? Even this? Yes, He tells me, “for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” How could I possibly thank Him for endless wakeful hours? Well, for one thing, I pray way more than the average person because I have more expendable hours. Some of you may be thankful for that. I choose to be as well. (Notice I say “choose.” We talk here a lot about choices we all make.) And that crosses off another thing on my life: “Pray constantly” (1  Thessalonians 5:17). Maybe I’m not perfect at the “constantly” thing, but I’m sure working on it.

When I start off my day in the self-pity and defeat, I’m giving the devil a foothold, something I’m supposed to avoid (Ephesians 4:27).  Such victories are a consolation prize for our adversary, who has lost out on the grand prize of the souls of those who have committed their lives to Christ. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” James 4:17 promises me – and you. If resisting is pressing on, then I’m resisting. By His grace, I’ll keep resisting.

So much in my Christian life – which is my whole life – comes down to my thoughts. What thoughts am I nurturing? One of my very favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 10:5-6: “We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ.” When I first feel that self-pity creeping in like a dark cloud over the morning sun, I must take that thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. And Christ tells me to count it all joy (James 1:2).

I don’t know what your battles are. Satan is clever at finding chinks in our armor and thus customizing our trials. In 2 Corinthians 12:7, Paul spoke of a thorn in his flesh, “a messenger of Satan to buffet me.” Paul asked three times for the Lord to take it away, “but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Despite his thorn, Paul was the world’s all-time greatest evangelist and church planter. 

Somehow I suspect that Paul’s sufferings – and the thorn was one on a long list – were a little more substantial than my chronic fatigue. But Paul put on his happy face and moved on with his life and his calling. Why? “I consider that these present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us,” he wrote in Romans 8:18. 

These present sufferings are a blip on the eternal horizon. Remember that.

And on that note, I say goodnight.

What's in a Name?

All my life I’ve had black hair. I have the photographic evidence dating as far back as the day I was born. It’s part of my trademark. Something about a woman identifies intrinsically with her hair. So most women are very particular about who does their hair or how their hair is done. 

I trust Michelle with my hair. She knows my quirks, and she knows that I also have this little life-threatening sensitivity issue. So when I decided to start covering up my whites (because that’s what they are on a black-headed person), she chose my formula with fear and trepidation. Each time she does my hair, she asks continually, “Are you okay? How do you feel?” And when she’s done, it’s my hair, just minus the whites.

But Michelle was sick – horribly, miserably sick. So I entrusted myself to another lady in her shop, whose skill became readily apparent.

Once the developer was rinsed off my hair, however, I noticed something different.

“Mary, is that red around my roots?” I observed a little nervously.

“I used the formula Michelle told me to use,” Mary said with certainty.

“Natural black?” I asked.

Mary ducked into the back room. A moment later, she peeked her head around the corner. “Chocolate raspberry?” she sheepishly asked. Funny thing is, I loathe raspberries.

But despite myself, I burst out laughing. All my life I had envied redheads – I even spent $90 as a young woman trying to get red highlights – and look who was seeing red now!

As if on cue, Michelle – perpetually paranoid that I’ll go into anaphylaxis – called to see how my color was going. Poor Mary, mortified and confused, handed me the phone.

“Uh, Michelle, when you get well and get back to work, you need to change my card in your file.”

“What do you mean?” Michelle asked, fear in her voice.

“You need to change my color to natural black,” I chided.

“YOU’RE NOT SHERRY WITH AN S! YOU’RE THE OTHER CHERI!” Michelle shouted into the phone. 

At this point, I was seriously concerned that the stress would send Michelle back to the hospital, but I couldn’t help but laugh. I wanted my hair back, mind you, but I kept laughing. (For the record, I’m back in black.)

A name is a pretty important thing. Jesus drove that point home with his disciples when He asked them who people said He was. 

“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets,” they replied. 

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (See Matthew 16:13-16.)

That’s one question for which we all need to be prepared to give an answer. It’s the most important question in all the world. It’s not enough just to believe in God.

“You believe that there is one God,” James 2:19 begins. “Even the demons believe that – and shudder.” See, no one has to persuade the demons to believe in God. They can’t help but believe. But acknowledging Him as God and worshiping Him as Lord are two very different things.

And the Bible makes it clear that the God of the Bible donned human flesh and walked among us so that He might show us the way of salvation.

John 1:1-14 paints a beautiful word portrait of this Jesus that Peter proclaimed as the Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. “

Who do you say Jesus is? I don’t mind if you forget my name, even if it does result in anaphylaxis. But please don’t forget His.

Such Great Grace

I was a latchkey kid from kindergarten to middle school. Being a social animal, I liked having a full house, so I would wait all day long for the Cleveland RTA bus to bring my mom back home between 5:30 and 6 p.m. And all day long I would think about all the things I would show her and tell her when she got home. She was always tired and usually hungry and often a little stressed, but I had persuaded myself that one of those days I would wow her with a life-altering revelation, and she would be so impressed that I would win her undying devotion.

So I did strange things, things like carrying home full-size Monets or Degas on loan from the school library to hang up on our living room wall before she got home. But my mother had little appreciation for art, though I suspect all the drivers along my 1 1/2-mile walk to and from school appreciated my efforts. Sometimes I would recite speeches I had memorized, sometimes I would dance about the living room to show my mother what I had learned in theater school, and sometimes I would recite a litany of jokes I had memorized from a library book. Sometimes I would perform a self-taught song on my keyboard.

But usually my attempts were more cerebral – trying to keep in line with my mother’s high intellectual expectations – and I would simply memorize dictionary or encyclopedia entries and then spend the whole evening endlessly spewing my newfound knowledge.

“Mother, when I say that I like it when you brush my hair roughly, I am being facetious,” I would say with proper emphasis, lest she miss the big word and fail to be impressed.

“Mother,” I would spout, “I’m endeavoring to contrive a plan for my science project, which will focus on the varied responses of males and females to stress-inducing variables.” I would study her unflinching face.

People are like that. We always are trying to win over, to impress. Why? Because we feel as if we need to earn – or strengthen or just retain – someone’s love. (Okay, I’ll concede that other people may have more conventional approaches than my childhood efforts, but give me credit for my creativity.)

Pets are like that too. My dog will bring me his favorite toy while beating himself in the eyes with his bottlebrush tail. He’ll wait outside the bathroom door and then greet me as if he hadn’t seen me in days or even weeks. He continually woos me with his boundless affection so that my love for him has no opportunity to grow cold.

Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of us approach our relationship with God. We’re certain that we must work to win His affection, and that by obtaining His affection, we can ensure our foothold in heaven. 

But human relationships – or dog relationships, for that matter – give us a skewed view of God’s love. God’s love is unearned and unconditional. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The world, as we all know too well, is an ugly, messed-up place full of ugly, messed-up people – people God loves and people for whom Jesus gave His life.

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” Romans 5:8 echoes in affirmation. “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ when we were dead in our transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved,” Ephesians 2:4 reiterates, just in case we missed it the first few times.

It’s that grace that is so unbelievable, so rare in our everyday experiences. Our striving brings gains in our bonds with one another, and our failures bring loss – of friendship, closeness and even love. 

God grace spares us all that human melodrama. That’s because it’s not based upon who we are or what we do but is based instead upon God’s very nature. God is good, and God is love. The Bible is His love story for us.

In the same way that we can’t earn or lose God’s love, we can’t earn or lose His salvation. In John 10:29, Jesus said of His followers, “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” If you love Him and you entrust your life to Him, it’s a done deal. Stop your striving. From the cross, He Himself said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

My mother has been gone now for nearly 25 years, and I don’t recall ever having heard her say that she loved me despite all my efforts. But Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. And that’s good enough for me.

I Didn't Really Plan This

I keep a pretty predictable schedule. I have to. My time and energy are like an eight-serving pie that must somehow serve 16. So I plan out my days in windows. Time to read my Bible and pray. Time to walk. Time to work. Time to shop. Time to cook. Time to clean. Time for family. Occasional time for fun. At the end of the day, I like to look back at a checked-off list. I don’t take well to interruptions. They’re not on my list.

Getting sick this past week was not on my list. A sense of dread came upon me as I felt it coming on. Not again, I thought. Didn’t I just go through this? Can’t I just move on with my life? So I tried. I kept going, I kept doing until I was gone and it was done. Creeping crud had prevailed.

I didn’t plan on spending most of Friday afternoon at the doctor’s office, and I certainly didn’t plan on spending all weekend in bed. I had things to do. However, I did plan on resuming work Monday – and I did – but I didn’t plan on waking up this morning regretting all I had done the day before. 

Plans are like that. You get it all figured out and everything falls apart. That’s kind of how life is. By this point in my life, my plans were to be a great Broadway star or famous novelist, depending upon at what age I made the plans. But it didn’t turn out like that. And that’s okay.

“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails,” Proverbs 19:21 tells us. I’m not quite sure yet what God’s purpose is in my ongoing respiratory infections, but I can be assured He has one. He’s given me just a little glimpse lately.

I didn’t plan on getting a box in the mail the other day that contained a present from a dear friend, but I did. I didn’t plan on God actually hearing my prayers for provision over the weekend, but He did. I didn’t plan on getting a slew of college paperwork for my boys completed over the weekend when I could have been declared mentally incompetent, but I did. I didn’t plan on having this as my next topic, but here I am.

Sometimes our altered plans have a ripple effect. For instance, I didn’t plan on having to return to the grocery store this afternoon, but I did. And the lady in the very front parking place didn’t plan on slamming into a pedestrian as she zipped out of her spot, but she nearly did. And because she nearly did, I – after seeing her mortified and crying about almost killing me (a fate that would have put my respiratory complaints in perspective, I suppose) – knew to pray for this poor woman, who obviously is very stressed and distracted. That, or a contract killer for whom I proved too quick-footed.

“‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future,’” Jeremiah 29:11 tells us. So we can trust that He will use all things “for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His good purpose” (Romans 8:28), meaning that all these seemingly pointless interruptions won’t go to waste. He has a purpose in them; just wait and see.

So what do we make of our plans? Do we bother, or do we just save ourselves the hassle? James, the unabashedly confrontational brother of our Lord, puts it succinctly: “Instead, you should say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:15). That means that first we must acknowledge who really is in control. Then you actually have to surrender that control. Yeah, that’s right. Fork over that to-do list. “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed” (Proverbs 16:3). When our hearts abide in His, then our plans will align with His.

Does that mean we won’t have to endure interruptions? Not at all. But it does mean that we can endure them with peace and a confidence that nothing comes to us except by the hand of our good, wise, gracious and loving God.

I have a lengthy to-do list for tomorrow. I plan on being well enough to check it off. But if I’m not, I plan on counting it all joy – and dodging cars in parking lots. Most of all, I can’t wait to see what God has planned because His ultimate plan for me puts the sum total of mine to shame.