Beauty From Ashes
by Linnette R. Mullin
Oh how we Lyme patients crave a normal life! I sometimes wonder what it would be like to wake up completely unaware of my body…to feel no pain. Wow! I can't begin to fathom it.
Chronic Lyme disease has plagued me from childhood. Mom always wondered at the fact that I rarely wore my waist-long hair in a ponytail - even during the hot, humid Missouri summers. She didn't know the pain it caused me to hold my hands above my head long enough to put it up. My chronic headaches were labeled sinus headaches caused by allergies to pollen. My fatigue and feeling cold all the time was a puzzle since my iron count was always perfect.
When I was 12, the eye doctor declared I had strained eye muscles and prescribed prescription glasses for when I did reading and school work. At the age of 38, I still have good vision. Oh, I contend with floaters and my eyes get sore when my body needs rest, but my vision itself is still good.
Growing up in the Mark Twain National Forest, deer ticks feasted on me yearly. I recall having a bad "flu" from time to time, but never a rash. I remember one summer spending a good week on the couch, sick with a high fever, achiness, and other flu-like symptoms.
In college, I spent more than a month in sick bay with the worst flu I've ever had in my life. I had high fevers, bone deep aches, and my body retained nothing. To my knowledge, nobody else got this puzzling "flu" other than the poor dorm mother who cleaned up after me.
In my chronically diseased state, I now care for my own Lyme-riddled family. No one knew I had Lyme. No one knew I could pass it on to my children. It's an unrelenting cycle. What can you do?
It's easy for others to throw out pat answers. "Keep trusting in the Lord. Remember, He works all things together for your good."
Sure. That's in the Bible. It's a promise I clung to for years. But, somewhere along the way it lost its impact. It became clichéd.
Don't get me wrong. It's still God's Word and retains its power. But, in my extreme circumstances, I felt at the time that I required something more.
I needed answers. I wanted to understand the "whys". I'm God's child, so why does He allow me to spend my life in suffering? Why can't I enjoy a normal life? What good am I to my family, friends, the church, and those lost around me when I can barely take care of myself? I hate being a burden or hindrance.
So, what do I do? Give up? As a child of God, that's not an option.
In desperation, I turned to the book of Ecclesiastes looking for the "under the sun" passage. Finding it in chapter three, I read carefully and made quite a discovery.
"For everything there is a season." I guess that includes affliction, right? But,
that's not all I discovered. I realized that I'm not the only one who suffers. Affliction didn't begin with me, nor will it end with me. I already knew this, of course, but I need a bit of reminding from time to time.
As I read through chapter three and then the entire book, I found that I don't always have to know the "whys" of my life. God gave me a glimpse of His bigger picture and I began thinking of life as a puzzle.
When you look at a box of puzzle pieces, it's easy to become overwhelmed. All you see is a pile of different shapes, colors, and sizes. How will you ever get it put together? None of it makes sense.
As you lay out each piece, you find that some are beautiful, vibrant, and elaborately detailed. Many are muted, plain, and nondescript. Others, well, they're just plain ugly.
Some pieces display the butterfly alight on a flower, the golden hue of the sun, or a songbird perched in a tree. Other pieces show the craggy rocks that hold the mountains in place, the rusty hinge on which the cabin door hangs, or the ash heap of the campfire.
Though some pieces are attractive and seem more important than others, every piece is precious. Each one is part of the same puzzle. As you put them together, piece-by-piece, a glorious picture unfolds.
But if even one piece is missing, the entire picture is marred and incomplete.
The writer of Ecclesiastes says that God makes every thing beautiful in its time. As God puts together the puzzle of life, this is a promise to which I cling. Maybe my life is a piece from the ash heap, but I'm no less significant than the golden hue of the sun.
God loves me as I am. He placed me where I am. Whether I see it or not, He uses me even in the weakness and frailty of my flesh. And I know in some unfathomable way, God is producing something beautiful from the ashes of my life.
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die…a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11a; ESV)
These verses resurrected the power of Romans 8: 28-29 in my heart, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." (ESV)
Many trials have plagued me in my short lifetime, and many more are sure to come. But, whatever God brings, I can hold on to this promise…EVERYTHING will be made beautiful in its time.
