PUT OUT INTO DEEP WATER

Our church runs a craft group where about 100 women come, chat and create for a couple of hours each Wednesday morning. Each week, someone shares for 3 minutes. I was asked to share and felt the Lord prompt me to share part of my story with them. I thought I'd also share it with you.

"In 2014, after living with chronic fatigue syndrome since 2006, I was prescribed a year of rest. At the ripe old age of 26, at the age when I was meant to be in my prime, when I should be working on my career, travelling the world, starting a family; I was told to stop: stop work, cease social engagements, and to rest.

In preparation for this year, I spent a lot of time mourning what was to come and what I would miss. And what if it was all for nothing!?

I have found that God doesn’t let any experience be wasted.

If we let him, he will use it to show us more of himself, teach us about himself, and prove himself faithful. This may not be your experience of God, but this is what I have seen, time and time again.

At the beginning of the year, when I resigned from my job, one of my colleagues sent me this verse from the Bible. Psalm 73:26,

“My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart: he is mine forever.”

I was disheartened. My health is bad, is my spirit growing weak? Will God remain my strength?

I thought this would be a year of hardship, of pain, of loneliness, of disappointment. And it was.

Maybe it would be a year of healing, of answers, of breakthrough. And it was…

but not as I had expected it.

I read this quote:

“I used to think life was like a series of hills and valleys. I was either in a good time or a hard time. But that’s wrong. Life is actually more like a railway track, where the good and bad coexist side-by-side all the time. In the midst of hard, painful and confusing things, good is still happening.”

And I saw this first hand. It wasn’t a year in a valley, I was on a railway track, and it was beautiful.

“In the midst of hard, painful and confusing things, good is still happening.”

At the end of the year, I wrote a poem as a reflection, here is how I began:

A year of rejoicing, a year of mourning

A year of clarity, a year of confusion

A year of peace, a year of restlessness

I serve a faithful God

My goal was good health; I was taking a year off to invest in the next 60 or 80 or however many God would give me. His goal was something greater, something deeper, something more significant. He gave me that year to invest in eternity, to know him more, to grow with him.

The Bible verse that was shared with me earlier in the year made a bit more sense. “My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.”

Do you know Jesus? Do you love him? I wonder if you’ve thought you could only be in a valley or on a hill at one time, but maybe you’re actually on a railway track and God is doing something beautiful in you. He knows you and he loves you, I have no doubt about that, and he desires to walk with you; will you let him?"