Trust Falls

Yep, that's 17-year-old me.

During the summer before my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity to go rappelling. And I loved it. Except for that moment when I was standing right on the edge of a cliff with my back entirely to its steep height. At that point, you're supposed to bend your legs at a certain angle and lean way back while holding onto the rope (before moving your feet down any). I'm pretty sure I didn't do either technique right because, well, because I was just a tad freaked out by it all. 

During my senior year of college, I had the opportunity to be a Resident Assistant (RA) in Willets Hall. As a kick off to the year, all the RAs went on a team-building outing where we did all types of cooperative activities, including a trust fall. Not terribly different from my high school rappelling, the trust fall required me to stand on the edge of a raised podium with my back to all the crossed arms that were going to catch me. With this activity, you're supposed to keep your legs totally straight. I didn't. My legs buckled as I fell back with much trepidation. (Mind you, this was nowhere near the height I was at when repelling!) 

Fast forward several years to my career in IBM's Worldwide Marketing Department. I had about 6-7 different marketing jobs during my time with IBM, and my favorite by far was when I was our division's corporate event planner. And unlike my high school rappelling and college trust fall, I was good at it. 

Because I was largely in control. 

Certainly not entirely, but there was a lot that rested in my hands, and less in each plan that relied on others. 

I liked it that way. Very much. 

Any control freak would. :)

Fast forward one more time to the start of 2020 when I dusted off My Utmost for His Highest, one of my favorite devotionals. If you're not familiar with it, I highly recommend it. And the other day, the morning's reading was titled, Worship, which Chambers defined as giving God the best that He has given you. He said, "whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift." I felt a nudge, kept on reading, but had to come back to it. And when I did, the blessing that immediately came to mind was my functionality, my current ability to function. (For those of you without chronic illness, I imagine that sounds pretty odd, huh?) Yet the thought of giving that back to God frankly left me afraid and unwilling. So I brought all that honesty to Him, telling Him what He already knew about the chasm between where my heart was on the matter and where I knew I needed to be. 

The last time I can clearly recall purposefully contemplating a general life offering was ten years ago when our son was about to start Kindergarten. I'd been consistently seeking the Lord in prayer, asking Him how He wanted me to spend all the time I thought I was about to have with our son in school. Never would I have never expected that His answer would include having me on our living room couch for months on end, largely incapacitated, followed by a decade of navigating life with chronic illness. Yet that's precisely what happened. Exactly one week after my 21st rebirthday with the Lord, I was ushered into the beginning of my spiritual adulthood journey through a health crisis that continues to leave its mark on my life. 

Since that September day etched deeply in my soul, I've had several set backs that usually last an entire year. Like just in 2018 when I was once again bed bound for a while, back in a wheelchair at points, and unable to drive until around Thanksgiving. So 2019 pretty much didn't have any direction to go but up, and I'm thankful that it did. It was a pretty solid year for my health with some noticeable little victories. And so to contemplate this idea of giving back to God as a love-gift my cherished blessing, my current ability to function, given what His answer involved last time I sought Him like that, and during a time when I feel like I'm finally getting back on my feet -- once again. It's not just enough to make a girl pause before offering such all-out surrender. It's downright terrifying. 

Chambers went on to say, however, that "If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded." Um, ouch.

I continued to wrestle with the Lord, and He brought to mind the principle where He calls us to "bring Me what you have" when He feeds the 5,000. (I almost didn't catch that both that principle and Chambers' manna reference involved food provision.) It's a powerful account of the big God can do when we give Him our little. That principle wasn't entirely resonating with me in this situation, though, given that the fish and loves is a context of seeming inadequacy. Whereas my current context that I'm afraid to bring Him is a bit the opposite. I'm afraid to give Him what feels like abundance. 

In my context of chronic illness, being able to accomplish simple things like driving or even taking a shower, those "accomplishments" that most take for granted, very much qualify as abundance for me. 

But maybe He wants me to bring Him my little abundance so I can see what greater things He can do, right? That may very well be. Yet I'm also keenly aware that He doesn't always work the way we think He will work, and oftentimes uses suffering as a crucible for (His definition of) abundance, which is all about His glory, not my comfort. And that reality admittedly leaves my heart wanting to take a step back rather than lean into the great unknown as I stand at the edge of this soul cliff not facing my future with clarity, but with my back to it.

God lovingly took my mind to Luke 1:38, a verse that really struck me at the start of the Christmas season. In essence, Mary says, "I am Your servant. Do with me according to Your will."

Ever forget you're God's servant? That your life is not your own? I know I sure do. Pretty much daily.

I let those words play on repeat in my heart and mind for a while to help them sink in: I am Your servant. Do with me according to Your will. I am Your servant. Do with me according to Your will. . . 

It can take a while for my heart to catch up to my head, for my will to bend its knee in surrender. And even as my soul began to take on a posture of willing surrender, I was keenly aware that I am so prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. I know the propensity of my heart to "give and take" in this life call to surrender. I struggle to trust because I'm afraid to lose my "life," my ability to function well enough to live somewhat normally.

"He who loses his life for My sake will find it." ~ Jesus

Okay, God. I don't want to love even my fundamental ability to function more than I love Christ, Lord. So here I am, giving my current level of functioning back to You as a love-gift. My legs sure aren't in perfect form as I lean back, slowly, in the trust fall. 

Yet I am Your servant. Do with me according to Your will.