An Unanswered Prayer

This past week was pretty tough. My reactions to dialysis seem to progressively be getting worse. What started as only a faint headache or just overall ickiness has developed into several migraines and throwing up. I’m not one to really complain but it gets hard when you already have so much wrong and more wrong stuff gets piled on top. I had stated in a previous blog post that God puts us through things to push us to our breaking point so that we can give up on doing things our own way and acknowledge that we need Him. Well this was one of those weeks.

It had originally started last Friday when I got a really bad migraine after dialysis and could barely function. As soon as the headache started I started praying and asking God to take it away. I spoke to it, bound it and even loosed “a calm head”, whatever that is. None of that worked. I took a bunch of Tylenol, that didn’t work either. In the end I eventually fell asleep around 7 just because my body was so exhausted. After thinking the worst was over I ended up going through almost the same thing on Monday, except it was less of a headache and more nauseousness. Both Monday and Friday I found myself bargaining with God in my prayers. Saying “I don’t ask for much I’m just asking for you to takeaway a headache” and “that you have healed so and so which means you can heal me”. None of that worked. And to add insult to injury not only did He not take away my ailments, He also remained silent throughout its entirety. That just drove me even crazier. How is He going to put me through something so painful and exhausting and then just totally ignore me. Well very similarly to my parents answer as to why I couldn’t stay over a friends house the answer is, “Because I said so.”

I had recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about the goodness of God. That saying God is good in spite of my circumstances and actually living it are two totally different things. I had to decide a long time ago in the beginning of this whole kidney ordeal that regardless of what happens, He is still good. Regardless of my frustrations and lack of understanding, He is still good. In spite of how much everything sucks and how hard headed I tend to be, He is still good. It was a decision I had to make to accept that He is, has and always will be good. I have come to have a strong dislike those feel good verses people give you to help you though a hard time. One of those verses is Romans 8:28 (NLT):

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

It often used out of context or cut up and only given with the first portion. But I have thought about that verse a lot lately because of the second half. If what I am going through is going to work together for good then I need to first love God and then be called (and answer the call) of His purpose in my life.

While the jury is still out on exactly His purpose in my life, I can still focus on loving Him. Being thankful for what He has done in my life thus far and what He will do in the future. I remember in Sunday School when a kid wasn’t able to think of something to be thankful for they would go to the default “I’m thankful God woke me up this morning.” I always wrote that off as just kids saying the first thing that came to their mind but in reality there is a lot of truth. I have learned to thank God for the fact that I am still alive, something which most doctors do not believe should be possible. And each day that He gives me is another that He is trusting that I will continue to follow Him and His will. As long as I am still alive that means there is a purpose out there that He wants me to pursue. Sometimes that purpose is just being content in the silence and continuing on my journey, other times that might be sharing my journey with a bunch of strangers online. Regardless of what His purpose is, as long as I continue to pursue it and as long as I continue to make the decision to love Him in spite of how terrible everything is around me I know that in the end, how ever far away that may be, it will work for my good.