The other day a friend came over and said four words to me “What happened to you?”. The question was humbling and clearly had to do with how undone this trial has made me. It was a hard question for me to receive as I am still wondering the same thing myself. What has happened to me? I can’t explain the complex reaction my brain underwent from the drug. No one can, really. I know there are hundreds of people who have gone before me that have had immediate adverse reactions to psych drugs. Unfortunately for me, I did too. No one could’ve known I would have a sensitivity to them – to me, it was toxic. One week of medicine had the same effect on my brain as if I had been taking it for years, so now my body is withdrawing and healing from the harm.
In Job 4:3-4 Eliphaz says to Job, “Surely you have instructed many, and you have strengthened weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have strengthened the feeble knees; but now it comes upon you, and you are weary; It touches you, and you are troubled. Is not your reverence your confidence? And the integrity of your ways your hope?” This is akin to what my friend said to me when she asked what happened. To me, the question had to do more with my response than with my injury. As a result of this injury, there have been people who have seen me in ways they have never seen me before…I have acted in ways I have never acted before. I can’t help it really. It is the effect of the drug on my brain. If they think it’s hard to witness, imagine how hard it is to live this way.
My friend Evelyn reminded me just today that we “need to hold on to making the choice- a firm draw the line in the sand choice, that says regardless of how we feel, we are choosing to trust God.” It is good to be reminded of things like that. I know it and I believe it, and yet I must make that choice daily and moment to moment. This is the place of the furnace. It is how refining is done. My circumstance is more complicated than others who must resolve to trust the Lord as my brain literally struggles to grasp reality at times. I have many moments of victory and in my failures, I am reminded that the Lord knows what I am going through, even if no one else does. No one else may quite understand but I know He does. My pain is not forgotten nor missed by Him. He sees every moment I cling to truth in spite of whats going on. He sees that I write to draw my rational mind forward. He sees that I just can’t do life most days. He sees how very tired my body is. He sees that I desire with all my heart, to worship, serve, and trust Him like I once did before the injury brought so much confusion and mixed up emotions. He sees my deep desires and deepest pain.
Jesus is intimately acquainted with all my ways and well acquainted with suffering Himself. Of Jesus and suffering we read, “As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind” (Isaiah 52:14) “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6) “Surely Our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” (Isaiah 53:4-6)
We know that the wrath of God fell upon Jesus for our sins and in order to spare man, God could not spare His Son. Jesus faced the full weight of the sins of man. Our eternal debts were poured out on Jesus…at the cross, eternity became fixed on His body. He bore it all to free us from the eternal punishment of hell. The promise of the gospel is that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ. He lived a sinless and perfect life. He fulfilled the law we break every day as we sin in our thoughts, words, and deeds. We owe a debt to God we can never pay yet He paid it in full on His body. He was crucified on the cross, died and rose again bodily from the dead three days later, defeating death. In Him and Him alone is their forgiveness of sin. All who repent and turn to Him in faith and trust, are forgiven by the blood He poured out at the cross. His life for ours. Outside of Him, man will stand before God in his own merits. Trying to pay an eternal debt to an eternal God through temporary and wildly insufficient works that are marred by sin.
The Gospel shows the beauty of the Savior who knows just how much I am suffering. Not one moment of my pain is lost on Him. For this, I am thankful because often I feel overwhelmed about it all. To know He sees me and knows my pain, changes everything. His victory at Calvary ensures mine at death.
So I cling, every day I cling to Him until this trial is done.