Waking from Winter Slumber

"Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.
"He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him.
"So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth." Hos. 6:1-3

It is a yearly ritual, when the warmth starts to tease us for a day or two but winter won't quite let go. I know they will be there...

 I search for my tiny purple snow crocuses that faithfully return somewhere between winter and spring, even if only for a couple days. And there they were, waiting for me.

The day I took this picture, I was awaiting a big operation, one I was not relishing. Just a day or two later I was under the knife for more than four hours as the surgeon fixed my hiatal hernia and took biopsies. You see, my breath had become shorter and shorter as of late. Even walking up a flight of steps was so tiring. I've been winded for years, but not like this. I had this funny bump on my forearm for over a year and finally went to the dermatologist. I thought it might have been precancerous or something but it came back as sarcoidosis.

Sarcoidosis, how come I had never heard of it before?

Thought to be somewhat like an autoimmune condition, these non-caseating granulomas start to grow in your body. The main place they attack is the lungs. When I saw a CT scan filled with nodules, we wanted to find out for sure if this was sarcoidosis and not cancer. 

Now we have a diagnosis, and will try to treat it with the help of my pulmonologist. Hopefully  medicines will calm the little buggers from growing anymore or invading any more organs.Yet having this diagnosis has not made me cry, not really. After many years of choosing worry over fear, this time I choose not to fear, but to live in the reality of God's unfailing love.

 A couple of posts ago, I wrote about numbering my days. At the time, things hadn't flared up yet with my lungs. Now I see why I wrote it. The Lord really does want me to number them, because just like those little friends that popped up from the cold, barren ground to say hello to me for a day or two, human life is just as fragile.

"Man, who is born of woman, Is short-lived and full of turmoil. Like a flower he comes forth and withers. He also flees like a shadow and does not remain." Job 14: 1-2

The first couple of days home it was all I could do just to lie in the recliner most of the day. But it hit me, if my days are numbered (and they are) then what really matters?

There are too many choices and distractions, but One book and One Person whom my soul longs for. Every time I long for Him, He is there, faithful, while the things of the world seem so empty.

Outside my window today I hear the winds roaring, just like the March lion. My tiny friends are slumped over in the grass. 

I face a tough road ahead to try and get this mystery disease under control. But I thank Him for it all, because He is using it to awaken me from my own winter slumber,  to know what it means to abide in His love, to have that perfect love cast out all my fear.

His love has allowed this, I will not ask why. Just as those tiny crocus displays His glory, it is my prayer that I will too. 

If there is something big looming in your life right now, I know He will show Himself utterly faithful as you simply trust Him. He loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.