I think I’ve forgotten that a relationship with God is about more than just talking TO Him, and worshipping Him… it’s also about LISTENING. Why is it so hard for me to be quiet enough to listen to Him? Even now, it’s hard for me to repose myself and be quiet before Him. Other people seem to be hearing from Him on my behalf, but not me.
That’s not entirely true. I do think I hear Him through scripture. I think He directs me to verses, and speaks clearly through them.
Maybe I just don’t have the confidence to state clearly, “This is what the Lord said to me…”
I wonder if it’s linked to what I was talking about in my last blog. Maybe my mind is so filled with these idols I’ve erected, that I am blocked from hearing Him – or maybe just too full of my own stuff to listen.
And even now, I see that the deception has led me to focus once more on appearance, and not on what is really happening, which is a fight for my survival. – a fight for my healing, and the banishment of cancer. I’ve been so absorbed by the loss of beauty that I haven’t been paying attention to the other things happening around me. How is that for sad?
So, the other day, when a friend wrote to me, and said that she had a sense of urgency about prayer for me, I was taken aback. Who am I, that someone should pray so earnestly for me? And yet, there are literally hundreds of people fasting AND praying on my behalf. Faithfully, earnestly, DAILY. People I don’t even know! It’s overwhelming. I don’t even think I pray for myself so earnestly. So daily.
In fact, over the last few weeks, I haven’t really been praying at all for myself and my healing. I feel as though I’ve been asleep, or drifting aimlessly. Part of this is because it is summer, and summer tends to be an aimless sort of time; but I think part of it is that I want to forget that I’m sick; I want to play in the sun, and go to the lake, and have dinner with friends, and do all the summertime things I always do without thinking of my body and its disease.
So, I’ve drifted.
And maybe I’ve drifted because I’ve been focussed on the wrong thing.
I remember one summer when Bryan was concerned about two things regarding our house. One was a small leak that had developed on our roof, and the other was the need to paint some of the rooms inside. So, one concern was functional, and one was cosmetic. Needless to say, I convinced Bryan, against his better judgement, that painting the rooms, and making them pretty was MUCH more important than fixing the roof. Appearance was more important than function.
I focussed on the wrong thing. That winter the leak grew, and by the next summer, we had to replace the entire roof, rather than patch just a corner.
So when I say that I’ve been asleep, I wonder if my aimlessness is due to this idol I’ve been talking about; I can’t see reality clearly because my eyes and sensibilities are so clouded. Or, maybe it’s been a deliberate closing of my eyes to truths, or questions I haven’t wanted to face.
When people ask me how I am, I always say, “I’m okay”, or “Well, we’re taking one day at a time,” or something suitably vague like that. Because, the truth us that I don’t really know how I am. I don’t know if the chemo is working, I don’t know if the cancer is shrinking, I don’t even know most of the time how I am feeling because so much of how I’m feeling is because of chemo, or the drugs – so it’s difficult to say what part of my discomfort is because of chemo, and what part is because of cancer, and what part is because of being tired of it all, and wanting some reprieve.
So, I don’t know how I’m doing.
And I think I might have convinced myself that I don’t really care. I think maybe I made an almost unconscious decision to suspend those kinds of questions until summer was over. Certainly, I didn’t want to think about them on Hornby Island. I didn’t want to be ill, or discuss my illness on the island; I just wanted a holiday. I had one day when I felt very fatigued, and ill. I couldn’t explain how I felt, and I didn’t want to embrace it – I wanted to ignore it, and I resented my body for having the effrontery to let the cancer have a part of my time with the Robinsons, on our island. Part of the problem was that when I feel like that, my brain is very foggy, and I feel isolated and alone, and I can’t articulate my thoughts. So, while I wanted to let people in, I couldn’t do it, and the day ended up as a disaster for me (and for anyone else who figured out what was going on.)
But, for the most part, we were pretty successful in putting cancer away.
And then we came back. And I had to have chemo two days later, when we were still basking a little bit in the afterglow of holiday time.
I cried when I walked into the hospital.
Two days later, Anna had a breakdown (more about that in a blog to come).
As a result, Bryan had a breakdown while on the phone with Laurie.
A week of sleeplessness made Laurie hyper sensitive, and she had a breakdown.
It was a bit of a disaster all around.
For me, it wasn’t really worse than usual, except for the fact that it was so difficult for everyone else in my family. The beginning was hard, but apart from that, things went about the same for me. What WAS hard was that Bryan, Anna, and Laurie were struggling so much, and I was completely unable engage in their struggle, OR do anything to help them. The chemo makes me disengage with my emotions, and makes me very foggy, and unaware of others. So, when I came to my real senses a few days later, and realized what had happened in my absence, I felt that I had abandoned my family.
And then things started happening. People started asking questions about my treatment, and my future; about decisions they thought I needed to be making; people began e-mailing me, telling me about visions they had seen, and dreams they had experienced. Before I knew it, my doctor was calling, and asking me to make decisions, and giving me choices I wasn’t ready to make.
I was confused.
And a little angry.
The whole point was that I didn’t WANT to make any choices. Not in the summer. Not when the sun was shining. Not when I didn’t know where those choices would lead. I didn’t WANT to know. I wanted to pretend that it was summer as usual at the Glum home.
BUT, as I read more e-mails, and talked more rationally with the people around me, I realized that God was working, and that if I wasn’t careful, I would miss what was going on. Other people were clearly hearing from God on my behalf, and I had better listen.
And that’s when I realized that I been out to lunch for a few weeks. God had been moving, but I hadn’t noticed.
A couple of weekends ago, several people had dreams and visions, and upset sleep patterns all focussed on me. One friend had a vision of the cancer in my body; she took it and squeezed it; over the course of several days, she continued to squeeze it until there was nothing left but a dry, white stone; she crumbled that to dust, and then she plunged her hands into a cleansing stream, while reciting verses of healing that the Lord had shown her. Another friend saw my liver, and there was a demon on top; he asked the lord if there was a demon of cancer; when the Lord said, “Yes,” my friend said, “Well, that demon has no business in Sandy Glum,” and he cast it out; he says that out of the corner of his eye, he saw it leave. Another friend hasn’t slept for weeks, and we think, now, that her sleeplessness may have been due to some spiritual warfare that had been happening around our families. Many people have written to me with verses about healing, and several people have said that they feel a sense of urgency; that God is ready to move. Many had verses that God had given them over the week, and some of the verses coincided with verses that God had given me throughout the week.
I began to listen to God.
So, today, I have some ladies coming by to pray for me; and tonight I have some high school students coming to pray. These kids have been reading about healing miracles, and have been praying for me for months; and so when they called and said that they had a burden to pray for me, and a real sense that they need to come over and pray for a miracle, I told them that they should come soon; that God was working; and that others were feeling the same. A sense of urgency.
So, I am excited, and apprehensive. In typical Sandy fashion, I feel a little ashamed that I didn’t begin this; that I wasn’t the one who heard from God first, or rather, that I wasn’t the one listening to God; that I was looking somewhere else, and I was focussed on something irrelevant while God was working; that I wasn’t in the loop until the loop had finished.
That I wasn’t in control.
But, I think I’m over that now.
I’m awake again.
I’m praying again.
I’m awaiting God.
And I ‘m expecting Him to move…
