Counting It

It’s easy. It’s easy to glorify Love when I possess only the idea of this tumor. To write pretty words on the internet. But when my face is red and it feels like my body is physically trying to expel it through choking and vomiting, this is hard.

I yelled at my dad to go away when he was only knocking to see if I needed anything. “I hate you,” I whispered between heaves. Not my dad, but the sickness that is trying to drain me of energy, joy, and Light and replace them with indifference, heartache, and darkness. I don’t think this is a side effect of what is inside of me, probably a delayed reaction to the contrast fluid I got for my MRI yesterday. But my stomach is in the most pain I’ve ever experienced and the bump has hardened as it protrudes from under my left rib. When I feel it, it scares me and I forget that this is all okay because of Whose I am.

I sat down on my bathroom floor after I brushed my teeth and washed my face from all the throwing up. I got mad at myself for treating my dad that way when he was just trying to help. The reason trials are hard is because we are not conditioned by the world to “count it all joy.” But feel bad for ourselves and let rash emotions rule us. It is dangerously easy to even exalt ourselves in them. Look how brave I am, look at how well I deal with this, take pity on me. But I don’t think that is the point of trials. 

‘You can give up letting this be about something bigger than yourself, right now, it’s easy,’ I imagined Jesus’ voice in my head. What a waste it would be. What a waste of a gift not of this world. So I asked God what He wanted me to do before I absentmindedly wrote the word love on my fogged up mirror. Sin makes that very hard sometimes. I am still learning not to get frustrated when I cannot always do it on my own. I must remember to let Him take it when I get a new nurse who’s so nervous she almost pulls the IV out of my arm or when I’m violently sick and want to get angry with those closest to me. But most importantly I must remember to be thankful, so thankful when my dad brings me my favorite type of lunchable or a friend sends me kind words. So thankful for the littlest things that are the biggest manifestations of Jesus’ love. Through this situation, He is giving me the gift of learning this and for that I am so thankful.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” James 1:2