So this week (well last actually but this week were the after effects) I got food poisoning. Will spare you the details but let’s just say I never intend to eat another prawn (or perhaps never let my husband cook them..) ugh.
I am not good at being ill (is anyone I wonder?) and it takes a lot for me to actually take a rest. I get bored being ill and always make myself worse by trying to do too much. That’s what happened this week – woke up feeling heaps better on Monday so then had a ‘normal’ day – just getting on with stuff. Come 6 o’clock I am feeling grim again, serves me right I know. Since then I have been napping at lunchtime and going to bed at 9pm, and living off water, plain digestives and vegetable soup. (so dull…) (church nights out as mentioned in previous post have mostly been canned!)
Funny how much it has taken out of me. I have done very little this week, even blogging has been minimal. In fact that old saying about kicking a man when he’s down came to mind. As this week a whole host of things have come to a head, some might call it a spritual attack (some meaning me). Feels like I’ve been got at on every level. from illness, to work stuff, crotchety kids, you name it. But the thing is, out of that, in my weary state I have spent much time in prayer. In fact I think I have been through many stages of prayer this week… something along the lines of:
1. Pleading prayer:
without intimate details, when the prawns were making their reappearance and I had a particularly close view of the toilet bowl, I was definitely pleading for God to stop it all.
2. Weary thankful prayer:
after said action had stopped
3. Angry prayer:
at not getting well. and at not being able to do the stuff I wanted to do.
4. Weary acceptance prayer
It’s not Gods fault I am ill. sorry for being angry at God
5. Desperation Prayer
still ill, kids grumpy, can’t do the things I want or need to do and so fed up of it.
6. Weary acceptance prayer
Its not Gods fault. I will get better, I will be patient.
7. Real acceptance prayer
ok I finally accept for real that everything that has happened this week is not of God. If he weren’t in it it would probably have been a whole lot worse.
In fact I have realised a lot of my prayers are like this. I ask God about something, it doesn’t happen instantly and I get annoyed. I really must learn about patience.
And the thing is that although this week has been frankly hideous, and I am still exhausted, a lot of things have been worked out, both in my head and in ‘real life’! So whilst I would rather not have been ill, (especially as prawns are my fave and I am annoyed at now not wanting to eat them ever again) good has come out of it. So was the Lords hand in this all along? Or is it just that he manages to make good come from bad? Or is it all irrelevant and my husband just a lousy cook…
…For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10)
3 Comments
Lesley Fellows
June 9, 2010 at 6:35 pmI dunno.. Rom 8:28 has always been my favourite verse, and still is.. even though I think sometimes that I should grow up and recognise that shit happens.
What I wrestle with is intellectual and emotional and spiritual honesty. I too have had a shitty week. In pain, found I have to go to court, struggling with anxiety, angry, depressed on and off… It is too easy for me to bury these things or to say things are ok, or to say God makes it ok.. I want to be real, to stop manipulating, but I also want to be peaceful and centred on God. Perhaps there are times for wrestling with God and times for resting in God. No idea.
Jules
June 10, 2010 at 12:58 pmSorry you've had a crap week too.
But I think it's always good to be honest. I think if we're having a shitty week we should admit it. although I have found it hard when people say – did you have a nice half term, not to say 'yes, lovely' when in actual fact it was awful. But if I am honest I then have the 'oh poor you' discussion which I could frankly do without.
But… what I do find off-putting is people who always give off the air of being wonderfully happy and sorted all the time. because that isn't real. I like real people and real people do have shitty weeks sometimes! and I think it's perfectly ok to admit that. but then we have the choice to sink into that and feel sorry for ourselves or try and pull ourselves out of it, in my case with copious amounts of prayer. The bible doesn't say that once you walk with God your life will always be peaceful and wonderful – in fact I'm fairly sure there are references to the opposite, so I guess it's about how we chose to deal with the pain and other crapola in a Godly way.
I'm not sure that one can always see Gods hand in stuff that is not going well, even in the aftermath, but I do firmly believe that everything happens for a reason.
Hope your week improves :)
x
Suem
June 10, 2010 at 9:51 pmI think you'll find eating prawns is forbidden in Leviticus. That'll teach you ;)
Hope you are feeling better!