Day 429 - August 18 - Who is this man I am?

Well, Connor's pain levels have gotten progressively better over the last week, to such a degree that he opted out of a cortisone shot in his shoulder "to save it for when I really need it". So that's a good thing, although he still has been fairly lethargic much of the time. He just doesn't feel good, he tells me - which is descriptive but not long on details. I would ask you to continue to lift his physical and emotional wellbeing up in prayer.

A couple of very strange things happened this week. On Sunday morning, while we were at church, I was singing along and (like I do all the time) praying in my head. And as I sang, I had one of those moments when the words and the setting and my emotions were aligned, and you feel it all well up inside you like a wave. So as this moment rose up inside me, I prayed "Lord, I cannot WAIT until You set Connor up. I'm gonna just fall down and praise You and glorify Your name! I can't wait!" And almost instantly I thought "Hey, wait a minute - I'm holding back on God." You see, God is worthy of that extreme degree of praise and worship independent of Connor - no matter what happens to the boy. And I withhold His due when I put a contingency on His worship.

Now, that's a pretty spiritual thing to say, right? And don't get me wrong - I haven't suddenly started running and leaping and praising God since I came to this realization. But it was at that moment that I came to comprehend this fact even though I've known it for many years. I would have answered "of course" if you said "He's worthy of your praise no matter what He does", but somehow there's a difference in my understanding of it now that wasn't there last week.

So that was weird thing number one. Number two was yesterday. You see, I spend a lot of time agonizing about potentialities. I know I'm supposed to trust God so much I don't worry about the future, but the truth is that I'm not there yet. So I was thinking about the things that might be in our future, and I was thinking that despite the optimistic proclamations about blue M&Ms and other research, the medical profession has no - zero - hope of getting Connor restored. None.

So far, that's not so weird - I do this stuff all the time. But the weird thing was that usually, this would lead me down my regular road into depression; but this time, when I reached that point in my reasoning, my brain said to me (I know that doesn't make any sense, but it's the only way I can describe it) - so my brain says to me "The doctors can't do anything. Good! That means that the only hope is God - the one Person who actually CAN do something about it!"

Now, I know you're sitting there reading this and going "Well, duh!" Yeah, I know this in my head, just like the first thing. But again, something happened that made me know it in my heart instead, and it's kinda psyching me out, if you know what I mean!

Strangely, over the last few weeks I've been praying that I would know God in my heart better than I know Him in my head.

I wonder if that's got something to do with it...

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