14 day plan

The Discipline of Suffering: Redeeming Our Stories

Day 3 of 14

NIV

Psalms 139:7-12

7Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

8If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

11If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

12even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

Reflection:  So why have the past 18-months been so difficult? I got through everything else up to this point. But lately I have just felt tired and hopeless.

Apparently, I am a complex case, which is a particular type of special that no one wants to become, especially when it takes a team of five people to work out the problem.

For the first time in my life nothing I did was working. I just knew my health was getting worse. The specialists kept increasing my pain medication. This made me depressed, and I could not think straight. I did all the exercises the physiotherapist gave me and joined his weights class, but my condition still deteriorated. I ended up unable to work. I was desperate. I didn’t understand why God would let it get this bad and not step in with a solution.

I lost hope.

Eventually the problem was solved. My back problem caused all my joints to deteriorate and need to be replaced. Two weeks later I had a new metal hip. Twelve months after that I had a new metal knee. I am just waiting for the other hip to say it’s time. You would think I would be thankful and pleased.

I still had no hope. I felt abandoned and suffocated by darkness. I had neither the courage nor strength to get better. I cried day after day. I was angry and tired of being brave. I wanted out.

But God does not leave us or forsake us. We are still in his hand.

Prayer:  God even when everything feels dark round me and I want to hide, you still see me. I cannot flee your presence. You find me no matter where I go. Thank you for guiding me and holding me fast during difficult times. Amen.

Psalms 139:1-24

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

1You have searched me, Lord,

and you know me.

2You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

4Before a word is on my tongue

you, Lord, know it completely.

5You hem me in behind and before,

and you lay your hand upon me.

6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

7Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

8If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

11If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

12even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

13For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

15My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

17How precious to me are your thoughts, God!

How vast is the sum of them!

18Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand—

when I awake, I am still with you.

19If only you, God, would slay the wicked!

Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!

20They speak of you with evil intent;

your adversaries misuse your name.

21Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,

and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?

22I have nothing but hatred for them;

I count them my enemies.

23Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.