Monday, January 7, 2013

Forced Stillness

A friend at church yesterday asked me, "Did you write your blog last week?"

My answer was an emphatic "No!"

I didn't write last week because for five days I didn't leave my bed.  I didn't do anything except take my medicine for the flu, bronchitis and a sinus infection.  For a couple days I didn't even feel well enough to eat, which should speak volumes about how ill I felt, especially with all the delicious Christmas leftovers in the house.

I never opened my computer once.

I was in a state of forced stillness.  Well, there was some tossing and turning, and plenty of deep coughing involved, too, but for the most part,  my body was still.  The odd thing about it, when I was awake, my mind wasn't still. 

It seemed to me during that time I the Lord brought to my mind so many people that I knew who were hurting or sick --sicker than I was, in fact. As their names and faces came to my mind, I was able to pray for them and in doing so I was able to do more for them than I ever could had I been able bodied and well.

There are seasons in our lives the Lord brings times of forced stillness for various reasons.  Sometimes it is simply the consequences of our living in a fallen world.  As was the case with me, perhaps we come in contact with someone who has a particular virus that just wants to be shared.  Or perhaps our stillness might be the result of the carelessness of another person.  The obvious reason doesn't really matter.  By the time it happens to us, we should be looking at what purpose the Lord has in our stillness.

Perhaps it may just be to give us a season of rest we might not give ourselves.  Or perhaps He wishes to still our arms and legs that He might more readily capture the attention of our hearts and minds.  Regardless of the initial reason of our stillness, there is always something of Himself He wishes to teach us and reveal to us in those moments of forced stillness.

As my weakened body was in bed for those days, my mind thought of all the things that needed to be done in the days right after Christmas, but that I was far too weak to even attempt to do.  That situation gave me a greater empathy for our friends that have lost mobility and must depend upon others to do for them things they used to do so easily for themselves.  Sometimes we forget the pains of others are indeed pains.  As our grandson Jackson would say, "It's good to have a reminder."

I am thankful to be feeling much better, to be back at work, and back at the computer.  But I am also thankful for the period of stillness that has helped to make me even more thankful for the ability to, as a good friend of our says, "sit up and take nourishment." 


"Stand in awe, and sin  not:
commune  with your own heart  upon your bed, and be still .
Selah." 
Psalm 4:4


"Be still, and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the heathen,
I will be exalted  in the earth."
Psalm 46:10

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