walking backwards down the stairs.

     The point right before the breaking point. When your heart is at it’s most fragile state, your physical body is falling apart and your weary soul is feeling worn out. I have been there. And at times lately, I have felt like I could add a postal code to the end of that place and take permanent residency. After a day of being almost pain-free and remembering what it’s like to feel energized and alive, the words of my wise mother are ringing in my head, “don’t overdo it, don’t push yourself, keep resting, be patient”. Growing up I have never been good at heeding this advice, and just when I thought I was getting better at it, I am awake, writing this, in the early morning hours mainly to get my mind off the repercussions of a day spent out of bed.

    Although it contradicts so much of what I have learned about the nature and character of God, it is amazing to me that at my most vulnerable points, when I am feeling particularly weighed down or like I can’t stand to be sick or in pain for one more day, I half expect a miraculous hand to part the clouds and to zap me, instantly healing me so that I could go on with life as usual (don’t think that I have not imagined this on several occasions as I lay in bed for the past 30 days). I am not discounting the fact that God could indeed perform such a task, but I truly believe that He is a God who knows me, and the way to my heart has never really been with grandstand acts such as (with the exception of that whole Saul/Paul thing and ...). I feel like what I have experienced has been far more extravagant.

    As I have cried out to Jesus Christ in desperation, I have felt His presence and a peace that smashes my paradigm. It’s been as if He has crouched down next to me, as I lay in bed, as I keeled over in pain, as I sprawled out on the bathroom floor, too weak to stand up after vomiting for hours...and as He met me at my level, He didn’t shout “be healed woman!”, there were no flashes of lighting from heaven or talking animals or burning bushes. Because He knows me and He usually cuts right to the chase. And as He gently wiped the tears from my eyes and He said, Hey. I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.

        He ravishes me with love in the way that I can receive it. And today, something clicked for me. As I realized that it has been exactly one month since I first got sick, my initial reaction was to feel really bad for myself and then get really frustrated (and sometimes when I get really frustrated, I think in “New Jersian” and catch my thoughts spinning wildly out of control, “C’mon already! Enough of this.” like a habituated commuter in a Lincoln Tunnel traffic jam). But when I quieted my thoughts and my heart, all that I was left with was the last thing that I expected. I was left with thankfulness. I felt overwhelming gratitude to be in a place where I was completely out of control. On a good day, it is so easy for me to pray, “refine me, give me endurance, teach me patience” and to question in my heart, what does it mean to “know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings”? Today, these prayers became a little bit more real as I am feeling more tested, tried, proved and refined than ever.

    My God walks with me. And that means we are walking together, very slowly. And sometimes we walk backwards down the stairs. Because it hurts less.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; 

he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.  

leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.


Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; 

for you are with me; your rod and your staff — they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; 

you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, 

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Psalm 23