The process of writing Patiently Endure was amazing. I learned so much about myself, about printing, about God. There were days when the words just flowed. It was like I could feel the Holy Spirit writing for me. There were also days where I had a bad case of writer's block . Days where I felt like I could not organize my thoughts clearly. And then there were days, weeks actually, I was paralyzed by fear.
Writing Patiently Endure was not all rainbows and butterflies. (Thank you Maroon Five for the lyrical inspiration. Reader, if you have no idea what I am talking about, just move on. It's OK. :)
My mind is my battlefield. Always has been. The devil had a hay day with me on my own turf throughout the whole year of writing Patiently Endure. I had many fears but the one that kept rearing it's head was this:
I or someone in my family was going to be stricken with a major health crisis.
As you read through Patiently Endure you will find that I share a lot about my past experiences in life and what I learned through them about myself and about the Lord. Key word: PAST. As we experience trials in life it is oftentimes the case that we do not see the good or the Lord's fingerprints in our situation until we can lean on hindsight. I was not experiencing any major health problems when I was writing Patiently Endure, so it was, dar I say it, easy for me to write about what I had gone through. And having been on the other side, writing about the Lord's faithfulness brought a smile to my face. But the fear that something could happen to myself or John or Aralyn at any given time burdened me off and on the entire timeline of writing this journal, almost to the point that I wanted to quit. I would fear something would happen to "test" my faith. If it did, would I still say the Lord was good? It was in those times of fear that I was forgetting the Lord's faithfulness. I was forgetting his love. I was forgetting to fill my mind with excellent and praiseworthy things. (Philippians 4:8-10)
The bottom line was and still is this: Something could've happened to me. Not one of us knows what our day to day lives will bring. But I have trusted the Lord with my salvation- a literal life and death decision. I can trust him with my health. With my family's health. With the inner workings of my entire life. I love this verse from Isaiah.
Let's fix our eyes on Jesus. I've said it time and time again, but to me it's the answer to everything.
I will share some of my other fears, but need to get going for now. Nap time for my sweet little girl is almost over.