The path to healing forks too many times

The road to contentment is hard to align

It's been almost eleven years I've had this chronic illness. Despite all the treatments I've tried, I haven't made it to the clearing of good health. I'm still wandering these twisted paths, lost.

Patience, acceptance, perseverance, thankfulness, contentment; sometimes I'm there. But they are slippery things that are hard to hold on to. Some days I rage and sorrow and flop about in a pool of misery.

Out of the anguish - the quiet voice is mesmerizing

Great God Jehovah sympathizing

I connect with the honest lyrics and hard edge of this metal song, on those kind of days. And by it I am reminded that there is One who is here with me, entering into my grief and pain. There is a subtle, peaceful current that draws me into His embrace.

Manifold in misery - symbiotic history of trials

Soon a yard turns into miles - a day becomes a year

Ugh. More than a decade of chronic illness and various health problems. Just when I settle into a rythm of functioning within my limitations, it seems like something new crops up. Anxiety, depression, perpetual fatigue, and cognitive degeneration are bad enough on their own - but mix them together and it's quite a mess. And these are but four of my symptoms!

No path set before me present itself as clear - confusion without peer

A cudgel of forlorn dreams hits me square and final

Some dreams are lost. Forever? I worked as an electrical engineer and absolutely loved it. I can no longer, and probably never will. Adapt, find new hobbies, dream new dreams. Smack! Health changes again. My world shrinks around me. I wonder who I used to be and who I am now.

What you cannot do for yourself

There is One who is able

To restore the years the locust ate

When sorrow has its grip on you

Giving you no reason to submit to any other

The prophet Joel of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles wrote about a plague of locust: "What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten." Grain, fig, grape, olive, and every other plant were decimated.

Complete destruction. Starvation. Impending death. Powerless, hopeless, crushed.

But God said that if the people returned to him with all their hearts, he would provide an abundant harvest and fill them with joy. "I will restore to you the years that the... locust has eaten."

When my life seems destroyed and I've reached my limit, when there is no hope - there is yet hope. God can do the impossible. He is able, and he cares.

Restoring the locust years

Only God knows his timetable of reclaiming what was lost and bringing life out of death. It may begin with only perseverance and hope, when I have none of my own. But the outcome is assured for all those who love and honor him.

"Restoring the Locust Years" by Tourniquet:

https://youtu.be/GCzE0h7ueic