Here is a recent post from my personal blog where I share what God is teaching while dealing with a chronic and potentially terminal illness. It is my hope to be able to use my posts here at WBTS and at www.hisstrengthmyweakness.com to share what the Lord is teaching me about Him as He walks with me through my illness. I’d like to encourage you to follow along with me and maybe even share my story with anyone you know who may be facing difficulties in their lives.

Many times God seems to have us in the “waiting room” of life as He teaches us and grows us. I feel like that is where I am right now. And I imagine some of out there may feel the same. Here is a wonderful and comforting truth God has given me this week to help me deal with the waiting.

Playing the Waiting Game

Sometimes I feel like all I have been told to do in the past three years of searching for answers is to wait. “Let’s fix the thyroid problem and wait to see if that fixes the muscle weakness.” Fast forward 18 months. “Okay, it’s not the thyroid, go to this doctor in a month or so and see what he says.” Then I get the MD diagnosis only to be told to go to Emory and then hear the neurologist say he wants a biopsy to confirm. I am okay with that. I half expected him to say that from the research I had done over the past few years. But then issues with the insurance company and a pre-existing condition clause held the biopsy off for a year. More waiting. I finally had the biopsy only to find out a month later in the surgeon’s office that the neurologist pretty much rejected the muscle sample removed stating that it was too small and too close to a tendon to yield conclusive answers. Now I have to wait for an appointment with the neurologist to discuss options for a second biopsy.

That’s not really been the bigger struggle for me, though. The big struggle about waiting for me at this point is having baby fever at the same and feeling like every time I hear the word wait I am counting down the days to the moment I won’t be able to have another baby.

Now, what I am about to say may seem odd. I say all that knowing full well that my baby-having days are probably already over. Both my pregnancies were tough on me. I didn’t recover my pre-pregnancy strength, and both have left me weaker than before. (But, I would gladly give up all my strength for my two precious girls!) That being said though, I realize that there may not be any more pregnancies in my future.

And I would be okay with that if it were a decision that Robert and I made ourselves. But I told Robert on Monday driving down the road that I am frustrated about it because I don’t feel like we have been afforded the opportunity to make that choice ourselves. I told him I feel like the decision is being made for me by doctors and insurance companies who keep forcing me back to the waiting room when all I want are answers!

Then my husband reminded be how very blessed we already are. He reminded me of my two little ones and how they’ve brought so much joy into our little home. And he reminded me of how if we never ever received anything else from the Lord we have already been given more than we would ever have deserved.

And while I have been mulling over my husband’s gentle, wise, compassionate leading, God has reminded me of a wonderful truth in Psalm 37:

23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.24 Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.

This waiting game has not caught God by surprise. He has ordered my steps. He upholds me with His hand.

I do have to admit that I was very convicted by the second part of verse 23. I learned that I am not always delighting in His way. Who am I to wrestle and fight against the One who has made the way and has ordered everything?

Lord, please help me to delight in Your way, even when it doesn’t seem to be the way that I would have chosen for myself. Help me to trust that You hold all things together and You order my steps–even the steps that place me back in the waiting room. And, in knowing that You have paved the steps, help me to be happy and delighted about where You place me.

Love, Kelli