The Struggle
It's amazing what your brain will choose to ignore when there's a job to be done. I ignored the sensation of stepping in pooled blood, feces, and intestines sticky and slick across the floor. I ignored the overwhelming, crying stench. I ignored the sweat dripping from my gowned, exhausted body. I ignored the knowledge that the patient in front of me was losing his life force from every source of escape. I ignored the presence of Death himself breathing over my shoulder.
All I heard was his struggled breathing through the megaphone of the respiratory ventilator.
Fast forward a couple weeks. I escort the representative from the funeral home to the morgue. Gently, respectfully, we transfer a grey shadow of a once caring grandmother to the folding gurney and cover her in velvet. I take a lingering glance at a lady I never knew. Still, washed clean and hands down by her sides. Wounds and damages kindly masked.
I ask myself now, which would you rather repeat?
Without a pause or doubt, I'd repeat the hours of thorough cleaning and careful watch beside the man struggling for every breath. Every ragged breath was reassurance.
In the struggle, there is hope.
Do you, my friend, feel like you have fallen one too many times? Done that thing you said you'd never do again? Have you crawled to the foot of the cross, sobbing, begging for deliverance?
Take courage, dear heart, for as long as you struggle, all is not hopeless.
An un-surrendered soul doesn't struggle. There is no fight for one who has no desire to change.
Thus the very struggle over sin is a sign of your commitment. Becoming who God wants you to be is not an event. It is a process. And in process, there is failure. Failure is not the end, though!
"For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again, but the wicked stumble in calamity." Psalm 24:16.
The dedicated believer falls more than anyone else. But the focus isn't on the falling. It's getting back up again.
Kneel at the feet of Jesus. Don't make promises. You know you can't keep them. Just give that struggle once again to Him. And get up.
Be amazed as your walking time begins to outdistance your fallen time. Because He lifts you up.
Don't weep for the struggle. Look up. For in the struggle there is hope.
All I heard was his struggled breathing through the megaphone of the respiratory ventilator.
Fast forward a couple weeks. I escort the representative from the funeral home to the morgue. Gently, respectfully, we transfer a grey shadow of a once caring grandmother to the folding gurney and cover her in velvet. I take a lingering glance at a lady I never knew. Still, washed clean and hands down by her sides. Wounds and damages kindly masked.
I ask myself now, which would you rather repeat?
Without a pause or doubt, I'd repeat the hours of thorough cleaning and careful watch beside the man struggling for every breath. Every ragged breath was reassurance.
In the struggle, there is hope.
Do you, my friend, feel like you have fallen one too many times? Done that thing you said you'd never do again? Have you crawled to the foot of the cross, sobbing, begging for deliverance?
Take courage, dear heart, for as long as you struggle, all is not hopeless.
An un-surrendered soul doesn't struggle. There is no fight for one who has no desire to change.
Thus the very struggle over sin is a sign of your commitment. Becoming who God wants you to be is not an event. It is a process. And in process, there is failure. Failure is not the end, though!
"For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again, but the wicked stumble in calamity." Psalm 24:16.
The dedicated believer falls more than anyone else. But the focus isn't on the falling. It's getting back up again.
Kneel at the feet of Jesus. Don't make promises. You know you can't keep them. Just give that struggle once again to Him. And get up.
Be amazed as your walking time begins to outdistance your fallen time. Because He lifts you up.
Don't weep for the struggle. Look up. For in the struggle there is hope.
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