I Just Don’t Understand

Sometimes life just doesn’t make sense to me.

Circumstances don’t go as I thought, decisions other people make affect me,  decisions I have made don’t equal the outcome I rationalized.

Two months ago, I a tumor was removed from my neck. Nerves would be damaged in its removal but it was to  be minor and temporary. They didn’t know the tumor was larger, more agressive, and stickier than they thought. All of this resulted in more nerve damage, a longer recovery, and more therapy than was originally expected.

 I just wasn’t prepared for the struggles I am enduring because of it.

As of last week, it was confirmed  that the combination of a lack of movement in my vocal chords and esphophagus muscle are causing me to have a weak voice and an inability to swallow much more than liquids and soft foods.

I hesitate to share this only because in my mind, I believe my life could be much worse.  But the reality of living like this for the rest of my life, challenges me. It challenges me because I can’t eat normally. I choke on most of the food I try to intake and often times on liquids.  It’s difficult to eat in public and often I hope the person I am eating with knows how to do the Heimlich, should I need it.

The only solution they have for me right now are temporary solutions.

It is the only thing that can be done (except a mircaculous healing from God) to help get my voice to return and to allow me to start swallowing a bit more normally again until my nerves wake up are injections in my vocal chords and esophagus.  Temporary solutions for a long term recovery process.

I don’t understand why this has happened to me.  I have absolutely no control over the ability to improve my life, to change what I am doing, or to help heal myself. I am at the mercy of my sleeping nerves, my doctors, and God deciding when the time is right for my nerves to wake.

In Phil 4:6  it says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Right after that verse is another one that says, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

God has shown me something new in this and wanted to share it with you. In v. 6 it says we are to present our requests to God and not to be anxious about anything. Then verse 7 says His peace (He gives you) will transcend all understanding and will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Until recently, peace has been a foreign concept to me. I never full grasped what it meant to have real peace.

Here is the part that rocked my world.

That verse says “His peace transcends all understanding” which means I am not meant to understand! I don’t know about you, but that just frees me up big time.

There are just something on this earth that we are going to go through that are not going to make sense to us.

God says, “I know it, sweet child, and though you don’t understand it, if you would present your requests to me I’ll give you peace in return; it will transcend your understanding of this situation.”

That’s really what makes the second part of verse 7 make sense. It is a bit strange if you don’t understand the first.  It says, “guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.” Huh? What’s that got to do with anything? Well, it means, you will more than likely get anxious, like v. 6 mentions. Anxiety comes when we worry, when we try to make sense out of things, when we try to take control and figure everything out. God is saying to us “Guard yourself against the temptations that will come up to do that. Instead, in turn that over to Me, surrendering your requests, your needs, your concerns over to Me, I’ll give you peace.”

Don’t know about you, but I’ll take it.  Trying to make sense out of some of the things that happen to us in this world, I can’t make sense out of it.  So instead, I’m going to turn all of that over to God, let Him deal with it and I’ll take peace in its place.

Your turn. Is there something that you need to turn over to God.  Requests you have, unmet needs? Have you experienced something like this before that you’d like to share with others?  I want to hear about it, comment below.