As Long As It Is "Today"

 

Good afternoon, Thursday.  And welcome to December.

Yesterday started out as an ordinary day.  Getting up, doing the morning routine and coming in to work at the church, all was normal.  I spent most of the morning working on a Bible class I will be teaching at the beginning of the new year.  The time quickly passed, and it was time for lunch.  Sometimes I go home for lunch, and that was what I did yesterday.

In the kitchen, I decided to fix a sandwich for lunch and have some fruit.  I got out the sandwich-making stuff from the refrigerator…the mayo, lunch meat, lettuce, and so on…and took a couple slices of bread out of the loaf.  As I began to prepare one of the bread slices, it suddenly hit me.

I have vertigo and dizzy spells from time to time, and one chose this time to attack me.  It came on suddenly, without any warning signs I usually can detect.  I thought it might clear up in a few seconds, but it hung on so I did my best to put stuff back into the refrigerator and went to sit down in the living room.

That still didn’t do the trick, so I decided I needed to lay down and prepare for a longer bout with the dizziness.  I went back to our bedroom, hitting both sides of the hallway on the way there.  I managed to get my C PAP fixed up, took some medication, brought the trash can near the bed, (you can guess why) and lay down to rest.

A couple hours later I woke up feeling better.  I got up and gradually got back into the land of the living over the next hour or two.  This attack proved to be somewhat shorter than some I’ve had, which in many cases last most of the day.  I was grateful to be able to get up and be somewhat productive at home the rest of the afternoon and evening.  I never went back into work.

On a somewhat related note, and I’ll connect these two stories at the end, earlier in the week I was visiting with one of our members who has been battling cancer for the past several years.  I’ll call her Janice.  Janice has never been in remission, and the cancer is incurable, but the treatments she is still getting have slowed and sometimes stopped the progression.  She has ongoing chronic issues with the cancer as well as the treatment, and is home much of the time.  Her memory sometimes isn’t what it ought to be, and her strength and stamina are a shadow of what they were a few years ago.  Every day is a battle for her.

I asked Janice during the conversation if she ever felt like just giving up and not getting out of bed in the morning.  She said that she was thankful for every morning that she could get up and get around, and hasn’t dwelt on the idea of just giving up and giving in to the illness.  Her attitude seems to be one of thankfulness and gratefulness in the life she’s been given, and she is determined to live that life to the fullest extent possible for as long as possible.

I thought of my conversation yesterday with Janice as I was laying in bed fighting off the vertigo and dizziness.  Sometimes I just get to the point in life that I don’t much care anymore.  And sometimes it doesn’t take very much for me to begin feeling that way.  I’m sure that Janice has also had days and times when it seemed much easier to just give up the struggle…give up the fight.  But thankfully for her, those days and times seem to be few and far between.

I too sometimes have that little pity party for myself, as I did for a few seconds yesterday wondering why in the world I was blessed (so to speak) with chronic vertigo and dizziness issues.  I’ve had these things for the past 38 years, and have learned to live with them and deal with them as best I can.  However, vertigo is not life-threatening.  Cancer is.  There’s a world of difference in the battles I fight and those Janice fights.  She’s fighting for her life every single day.  I’m fighting for being productive on those infrequent days I don’t feel well.

Sometimes we look at our lot in life and wish we could get rid of this or that hindrance, or that we could be like someone else who apparently has no hindering issues of major importance.  Sometimes we feel sorry for ourselves because of what life has given us.  And sometimes we just want to go hide under the covers and not come out until the second coming of Christ.

The great Apostle Paul of the New Testament talks about a “Thorn of the flesh” that he had…possibly something similar to my vertigo episodes or Janice’s chronic condition.  Or perhaps it was something like a disability or hindrance that you might have.  Paul wrote about it in what we know as the second letter to the Corinthian church.  He had just written about his being privy to revelations from God that he could not put into words.  Then he writes this to the Corinthian church:

So that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me—so that I would not become arrogant.  I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me.

Whether or not we are given such things as vertigo or cancer in order to keep us from being arrogant, as Paul said about himself and his thorn, I don’t know and won’t even speculate.  But I have to make the connection with Paul when he says that was the reason why God chose not to remove that liability, whatever it was.

May we always be thankful and grateful that we wake up in the morning to a new day…that we revel in the time given to us…that we make the most of that time in service to the God who loves us, chooses us to be in his family, and desires the very best for us.  May we love and serve God as well as our neighbor with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength for as long as it is “today.”

 

Blessings,