Journey

(Written sometime in the summer of 1993, shortly after my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome diagnosis.)

I am on a journey, a pilgrimage. I am not entirely sure when it began; I do not know where it will end. Right now, my reality is travel, or travail. For this is not only a physical journey; it is mental and spiritual. Who I will be at the end, I do not know. I am more concerned with who I was at the beginning and who I am now. For they are not the same person. That is why I wonder.

The Bible tells the story of Abram, citizen of Ur of the Chaldees. Abram was a man of wealth, and the power and prestige that accompanies wealth. Yet when God spoke to him, Abram was listening. God promised blessing when He said, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1 NIV) And the Bible records that “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.” (Genesis 12:4 NIV) No questions, no complaints, no stalling. Abram went.

The Bible also tells of Jonah. God gave him a message, too. He told him to go to Nineveh and preach destruction to the people there. Jonah’s response was to run away. (See Jonah 1: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah+1&version=NIV) For his trouble he had a close encounter with a great fish and became one of the most famous characters in the Bible. (And in the end, he grudgingly obeyed.)

Last fall, I was living the American Dream. I was gainfully employed in a job that I, mostly, liked a lot. I had a house in the suburbs, the requisite two children, two cats and a reasonably indulgent husband. I had everything I needed and almost everything I wanted. It was then that the Lord spoke to me.

“Leave your job,” He instructed. “I have plans for you.”

“What?” I replied. “Leave my job? But I can’t, Lord. You know that. Why, it was through Your power that I got the job in the first place. There are people counting on me. It wouldn’t be “Christian” to let them down. Besides, my husband is counting on my earnings. He will never let me quit.”

“Leave your job,” came the quiet answer. “I have plans for you.”

“Well, maybe after this year, Lord,” I temporized. “It will at least take that long to convince my husband. You know how he is.”

It should be noted that during my dialogue with God, it never occurred to me to tell my husband what I was hearing, that the directive from the Lord was insistent. No, I kept it to myself, figuring that God would let him in on it if He wanted to. I really don’t know how Barry would have responded if I had acted in obedience the Spirit’s leading. I will never know, for I did not give my husband the opportunity to act in obedience on his own.

The Lord spoke. I did not obey. And I was stopped cold in my tracks, sort of like Jonah. I fell sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And… I left my job.

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Lord, I wonder if You were trying to spare me illness by taking me out of an environment that was too stressful for me. But I worried more about what people would think, my coworkers, my husband, and not enough about obedience. In the end I caused more chaos by getting sick than I would have had I simply quit.

Wondering what might have been is a waste of time though; we are not allowed to know that. But I see now that You were, and are, accomplishing your goal of making me more like Your Son, because “even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8 NLT). I’m learning, Father, I’m learning…