The Blinding Light of Untruth

The flu got me a few weeks ago and kicked my behind!  The virus that took control of my body was bad enough, with an unimaginable headache, but the lethargy and lifelessness that followed drained all my energy and motivation.  And rest … rest was unattainable during those first four days – and nights.  My head hurt so badly.  I was exhausted, emotional and just wanted to go to sleep.  You know, there is a lot of squirrely bananas that go through your head when you are in that place.

The days in it’s clutches were filled with fever, muscle aches, an insane faucet (that is obviously hidden somewhere inside my head) that was at full flow.  But the headache, it felt like someone had taken a stick and beat all around my head, face, ears and throat.  It was completely unreasonable.  There was no cajoling it to ease up or go away.  I told someone that my head felt like it was stuffed into a head two sizes smaller than mine!

I totally understand that I was only one of many people that were visited by this unwelcome guest this flu season.  So I will not whine on.  I will try to jump back on to the “Blogging Train” with no additional whimpering.

Most people did not even miss me, or realize that I was gone. I would like to think that my twenty-six followers missed me a little bit.  Much to my surprise, I do actually have a few fans, and they have either called, texted, Facebook posted, LinkedIn, Instagram messaged or private messaged me, wanting to know if I am still writing and where I have been.  That has been a hard question to answer, except for the two weeks where I experienced invasion of the body snatchers!

Confession time.  Right after the first of the year I ran into my first “writing wall” since I started my blog.  I was so blocked out that I was stuck.  I started a couple of blogs and could not get very far.  Looking back I see that some of it was emotional.  I had a couple of blog ideas that ended up going in not very positive directions, and I have determined that this will be a positive place for people to come.

The first block came when I was working on something titled, “Behold the Ugly Beneath the Surface of Beautiful.”  (Sounds positive doesn’t it?)  It started with the topic of bullying; but once the first couple of paragraphs were written, I could not find a positive direction to go  That became way too personal and I could not detach myself from it to try and find a positive thought process.  I stayed stuck there for too long and finally determined that was not something I could write about in this blog, not now anyhow.

Then came the two weeks of the flu.  Nuff said.

So trying to get back into the world of the writing, prompted by an old friend’s birthday  and another one coming up a few days after mine, I attempted a blog titled, “Friendship’s Flickering Flame.”  I wanted it to be about friendships that have faded or are lost and how they can be found again.  In my, still semi-emotional state, that one became too much for me also.  The reason being that one of those friendships faded away because of bad judgement calls on my part, and the other was lost permanently because of senseless tragedy.  So, it ended up that I could not find a positive spin there either. It just made me sad.

Although not normally me,  I have recently been unmotivated to do anything.  Obviously there are blogs to be written, there is spring cleaning to be done, especially windows to be washed.  (If anyone has that on their bucket list and can’t find windows to wash, I have your windows!)  There are weeds to be pulled (once winter goes away again…)  “Oh winter weather, could you please freeze out the weeds?”  Although the weeds are so far ahead of me at this point that I despair of ever catching up with them!  None-the-less, I am determined to get back in sync and I am choosing this week to do it!

I do, truly, want to use this platform as a positive outlet.  More than that, I want to honor my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ by speaking good and not bad – life and not death.  I truly want to be a Philippians 4:8 person.  If someone could get, even a tiny, little glimpse of Jesus from something that I write, I would feel like I had accomplished the task He had set before me that day.  So that is my goal.

As I said, I am finished whining about the flu.   I did learn something from that time though.  During that last night when I was so exhausted and still not able to sleep, I became so emotional.  I started feeling a little sorry for myself.  (This is where those squirrely bananas come in!)  Even though my roomie and I are together most of the time, I felt so alone.  There is just something about that middle of the night, early morning time that is so stark and forsaken, with too much time to think.  I miss people.  I miss being able to jump in the car and go at a moments notice.  I miss meeting my friends for dinner or a movie.  (I miss being invited to dinner or a movie!)  I miss being able to attend special occasion events.  I miss being able to go help someone out when others think I am wasting my time.  I miss the me that used to be.

The driving restriction hit me harder at that moment than it has the past two and a half years.  So why, when I was in no shape to drive anyhow, would I lament driving on that night?  I think it is just the loss.  I have tried so hard to put on  a brave face and not allow anyone to see how much I have truly lost; because I have retained much, much more than I have lost.  I am so very blessed.  I want to be the brave one, the one that takes it as it comes.  I want to be strong and courageous.  I want to be positive and encouraging.

In the throes of what ever was going on with me that night, I got it.  Nothing had really changed from the daytime, when I was surrounded by light.  It was just the dark and the exhaustion that made every little loss seem magnified and my heartbreak a little bit bigger.  The evil one uses the night and finds you when you are  in your greatest distress and tries to turn it around to be God’s fault.  He lies!!  (He is the father of lies, you know.)  When we are at our weakest and at our lowest is when he likes to swoop in and take us out at the knees with the lie that nothing is ever going to get better.  Ahhhh…. what a complete untruth!

But what he did not count on that night was that for a Christian, the safest place to be is on your knees.  It puts you in just the right position to remember where your strength comes from.   “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”  Psalm 121:1-2

It puts you in just the right position to be able to tell the Truth from a lie.  I might have listened to the lies for a bit, but never believed them.  I  may have lost a little skirmish that night, but the greater battle, and the war, is already won and I am on the winning side.

And though I am not away from God, I am not in a bad place with my relationship with God, and my faith is strong, I could see the parallel between the evil one attacking you when you are weak in your faith or your fellowship with God, and the evil one targeting you in an emotional, weakened state.  Staying in God’s Word and maintaining those positive relationships with the Body of Christ is extremely essential to a healthy Christian life.  You have to stay facing the light.  Light ALWAYS trumps darkness; but the dark can NEVER snuff out the light.  As badly as some want to believe it, you can not live a strong, vibrant Christian life in solo.  A body is made up of many parts and none of those parts can exist by themselves.   We strengthen each other.  “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”   Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (ESV)

So yes, you are going to have those times when you can not see how to make it through to the next day, but you have to put your chin up and press on.  Keep going.  Don’t stop!  Move along.   I am.  I have to keep moving and looking forward.  I have a beautiful future ahead.  I have the most beautiful future ahead!  I refuse to allow a few stumbling blocks to get the best of me.  I am God’s and He is mine.  That is the greatest comfort that I have in my life!

So, squirrely bananas, be gone!  See ya next week!!

~~~

Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart].     Philippians 4:8 (AMP)

Photo credit: tamra hays on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-SA