Worship

Today the altar of sacrifice looms before me; insurmountable, bloody, costly. But I strap myself down and turn my face to him in adoration. My mind turns to Romans 12:1 and Paul's plea "to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him." If he really wants my body he can have it, he has a claim on all that I am, it came from him in the first place and will return to him in the end.

Two days ago I knew the symptoms I had struggled with in the fall were back. Yesterday I walked with a limp and was dizzy, my hands felt week and strange, my memory struggled. It hit me like a ton of bricks because, since one mild flair up in January, I have improved physically to the point that I would have said I was 90 percent improved. I see my gynecologist next week, my neurologist wanted to have my hormone balance checked since that can effect neurological function. If that test comes back normal I'm back to the drawing board and will probably have further MS testing.

Yesterday when my symptoms flared so dramatically, I wanted to weep. The unknown of my health is stifling, the what ifs, the challenge of functioning when I feel so yucky makes me weary. BUT Jesus. If it wasn't for that sweet name, I would be tempted to lay down in despair. Instead I WORSHIP. In times like these I find the only thing to do is die. My plans, my hopes and desires even my needs all get heaped up on the altar. My body is fair game, money, husband and (I shudder) children, all are subject to the flames of sacrifice. But I find the sacrifice (ignited by the flame of the Spirit, initiated by the blood of the Son) is just a doorway and beyond the doorway of death is my real life, lived in the power and life and authority of the Son. I find that when I thought I was alive I was really dead and that when I died that's when my real life began. And I find that this twisting, turning journey of faith is really made up of multiple altars, deaths and resurrections. Until one day it's all done, the final death is encountered and one day my eyes open to the blinding radiance of my real life and it's all in my Beloveds face. No more faith, all sight.