Quiet Is Not Silence

Quiet Is Not Silence!



Isaiah 18:44 "For the Lord has told me this 'I will watch quietly from my dwelling place - as quietly as heat rises on a summer day, or as the morning dew forms during the harvest" (NLT)

Zechariah 2:6 "for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye - "

I am home from San Francisco and from my final weekend in Walloon, aka My Happy Place!  And I find my self trusting that even though God appears to be silent when it comes to my afflictions, that he is indeed watching quietly from his dwelling place.  I sometimes confuse his quiet presence with silence.  I am discouraged many days as I still struggle with the nerve damage and the eating disorder, but God has not been silent,  he has just been quiet.  I find that I need to quiet my self and stay in the moment to hear his voice whispering quietly that I will be okay.  I seem to be hearing this when I am still and keeping my focus on him and who he says I am in him.  I hear his whisper today as I take the paddle board out on the water.  It is quiet, it is peaceful as the sun's reflections mirrors God's radiance back at me, and in the whisper of the wind I hear him speak to me "Liz you are going to be okay, you have always been okay, you are the apple of my eye"

My nerve pain isn't necessarily better than before I traveled to San Francisco this time.  I am actually worse for a few days and my symptoms flare like a raging fire.  I find myself doubled up on the bathroom floor with pain gripping my body from my waist to my knees.  There isn't much I can do, but wait it out and hope it last 5-10 minutes, not 30 minutes.  It feels like the contractions that come during the transition stage of labor and all you want is to grab the nurse by the neck demanding an epidural.  In my episode of pain, I remember that I AM better than I was 4 months ago and try not to panic.  I believe God is watching, growing and strengthening me to be the person in Christ he intends for me to be, but it is painful.

So, what does a person with an eating disorder do when they feel pain, apparently physically as well as emotionally?  Well this person turns back to it.  I face the fact that my physical pain is emotional because it is in these times that I feel God has gone silent on me and I feel alone. It is the emotional pain of feeling abandoned by my heavenly father that tears at me.  So I purge, hurting my body on my own terms once again. When the pain both physical and emotional subside, I turn back to God.  I am so grateful that my God is always loving and always forgiving.  Is my purge my "fuck you" to God for allowing the pain?  Maybe, I have never really though about it that way before.  I know that people reading my story are sometimes shocked by my words, after all how can a woman of God use such language.  Here is the thing, and I don't pretend to be a great theologian, but whether I write the words or say them out loud,  God already knows just what I am thinking and feeling, but He still loves me and I am still the "apple of his eye."  He loves me through the pain, and I like to think He appreciates my honesty (maybe not my choice of words.)  He can handle my anger.  He can handle all of our anger as he watches from his dwelling place waiting for us to calm down and return quietly to him.  He rocks!

I wake with a well deserved headache and my heart throwing numerous PVC's from the purging.  I admit to myself that it does concern  me, just a little, and I wonder how much damage I have really done to my body over the years.  The wondering moves like a freight train coming at me, from concern to fear as I attend the funeral of a friend who suffered for years from eating disorders and addictions.  Her body, in her mid forties, just more or less gave out. I can't go back and repair what I have already done, but can I stop the train from plunging off the cliff?

The Priest's message, for this almost Pentecostal woman, was simple and beautiful.  Here is all I need to say "Help me Jesus and I am sorry"  I know that there are earthly consequences for the choices I have made, but he wants to help me and he will forgive me.  I broke down sobbing like a child, not just in grief for my old friend and her family that loved her desperately, but tears for myself.  Tears for the time I did cry out "Jesus Help Me, I Am Sorry!"  I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving as I realize that the times I didn't "feel" his presence, He was still there watching quietly from his dwelling place waiting for the right moment to reach down and "Help Me."  How do I know he was watching?  The answer is simple;  I know this because I am here.  Had he abandoned me and gone silent, I would have surely perished either in the eating disorder or my own hands.

Close, I was so close to hurting myself and allowing myself to succumb to the eating disorder as a less "messy" suicide.   I now understand how, for some, that life just seems like too much.  It can be excruciating, and we don't want to leave our children, families, and friends to grieve, and pick up the pieces, but we don't want to live in the pain the leaves us feeling lifeless either.  Such is the dilemma for those who contemplate life and death?  I am glad I chose to live because I am not as sick or as in much pain physically or emotionally as I was.  What if I hadn't waited it out?  What if I hadn't trusted God to watch over me from his dwelling place and strengthen my faith to trust that he himself would lift my beleaguered  body to its feet.  Daniel 8:18 (NLT) " While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground.  Then He touched me and raised me to my feet."

Had I not chosen life, my glorious summer full of laughter and joy wouldn't have happened.  My family's and friends' memorable summer wouldn't have happened.  Well, summer would have happened, as  time stands still for none of us, but the memorable summer would have been replaced with a memorial, my memorial.  So I stand on my feet watching the grieving family members of my friend file slowly down the aisle with tears stained faces, and I hope it is not too late for this body to press on.  I also hope that this is something I can look back on when life sucks the life out of me, and remember what if I hadn't pushed through one more day......