We will always be learning as we make our way along this journey

As I have mentioned, I am turning 65 next month and like any American who has had the pleasure of signing up for Medicare, I have experienced my fair share of scammer letters, red tape, “your estimated wait time to speak to a representative is…”, and other frustrations as we have sought counsel and navigated the system.

On May 1, I obediently and dutifully submitted my application on the secure website and was told it would take two to four weeks. I began checking after two and by four, I hit panic mode as my application seemed to have stalled after being handed over to an agent who lives on the East Coast on May 1st and froze in cyber space from that point on.

There are more steps to be taken before Russ’s insurance bids me a fond adieu the last day of this month and a week ago Wednesday found me like the Psalmist…lying in a bed of tears, tossing and turning, through the long hours of the night.

As I fought anxiety that I had missed my window and would be in the abyss of the non-insured, I would attempt to pray and turn it over to God. I preached to myself about not being anxious and casting my cares on Him.

But sleep evaded me and I felt the weakest of the saints and a complete spiritual drop out since I was holding to what I knew, but still not resting in Him for He cares for me.

On Thursday morning as we prepared to go to Bloomington, I told Russ my plight and that I was filled with anxiety and had not slept. He suggested I bring the paper work along and call the Social Security office to see if they could help me.

I wasn’t too optimistic, but as we drove I called and followed the prompts and gave away a lot of personal information only to be told there was such a large call volume they were not taking any more calls at that time.

Welp. That didn’t help my fears that they are so far behind my little application was in a dead zone for a long while yet.

Because he is good at being my better half, Russ just started praying for me as he drove. He prayed for the application and for wisdom on what we should do and he prayed for me and my worries and weariness.

When he was done, he asked Siri for the location of the Social Security office in Bloomington and got the address. He suggested dropping me off there and he would go to the house so Zach could leave for work. I could just let him know when I was done and they would pick me up.

We pulled in the lot and there was only one car parked in front of the building. We were afraid they were closed, but I got out and saw the door was unlocked so I waved him on. I took my number and waited while the gal ahead of me finished her business and I was summoned to the glass window.

From there I will just say that the nicest man took my information, typed a lot, asked a few questions and in a matter of minutes smilingly told me I was approved for coverage with the government of the USA.

It was a Medicare miracle.

The joy and relief were bubbling and I am still giving thanks to God, but throughout the rejoicing there was this niggling feeling of disappointment in myself that I had gotten so worried. God has done a great work in me over the years to deliver me from anxious spinning thoughts, and I felt like a wee bit of a failure.

But on Sunday morning, we had the most wonderful sermon by one of our pastors on faith. The sermon was excellent and if at all possible there will be a link to it at the bottom of this, which I encourage you to listen to, but if you don’t…the gist of the sermon was that at some point we who follow Christ recognized that we were lost and separated from God.

We turned from the direction we were headed and we started moving in the direction of Jesus and His teachings.

But along the way, we sometimes get off track. Or we question if it is worth it. Or we feel like we didn’t read the fine print well and we aren’t quite sure we understood what would be required. We might be looking back over our shoulder and thinking briefly about what we left behind and how maybe it would have been easier to just stay there.

Using a chair as an example of faith (we believe it’s a chair, we believe it will hold us, but until we sit in it we have not put our faith in it), he said that all along our journey, just as we at one time sat down in faith and believed in Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and life eternal, sometimes we have to just stop and sit down in that faith, once again, for a bit.

He gave an example from his own week where he had struggled and felt he failed and God had so tenderly let him struggle and then gave him a very clear reminder that he is loved and cared for and matters much and that God is worth everything we thought we left behind.

Our pastor Adam and I have very different stories. He came to faith in his young adult years, while I grew up never knowing a day that I didn’t know and love Jesus. He has a young family, we have raised ours and now watch them navigate the same years he and his wife are living through.

But we share a common reality.

We have places along the journey where the path gets twisted and tangled. We get tired and we keep pressing on and doing the thing we know to do like pray and speak the truth to our souls, but we are not feeling that faith thing deep in our spirits.

And we wonder what we are supposed to do because it just isn’t working.

But God.

God provides places of rest along the way where in the wrestling we just cry out. He speaks through others reminders that He is faithful.

I now have a picture for those times when I know that He will take care of what I am worried about but I still can’t fight the anxiety. I can picture that as I struggle, I can just sit down in the struggle. It doesn’t mean I won’t wander, dawdle, look back, look too far ahead, get stalled…it just means that I am aware these things are part of the journey and in the midst of the temptations and distractions, I have a chair to rest myself on until He helps me get back on my way again.

As I laid on my bed that night, as I tried to prayer and remind myself that He has always taken care of me, as I shared my anxiety with my husband and he prayed for me, we were sitting in that chair of faith.

Just as my salvation was not something that I accomplished, maintaining my faith is not up to me either. As I once just accepted His mercy to forgive me, I now have to remember at times to just accept that it is His faith I rest in. All I could do was receive His free gift of salvation and all I can do is rest in His faith.

God bless you wherever you are on the journey.

Here is the link to Adam’s sermon … be sure you watch to the end of his message https://vimeo.com/833415276

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