My God is My Healer

I feel joy.  My heart is so happy.  I am experiencing a deep sense of contentment and new intimacy with the Lord.  I sense His presence and experience His love.  I have learned what it means to trust Him with everything, even the small details.  The result is a deepening love relationship with Him.  I thought I already had a love and trust relationship based on the growth I had experienced and described in my previous blog entries. It is true that I was growing in my faith and learning to trust. However, the Lord had more to teach me.  I have been reading over my prayer journals from the past three years. I am struck by the number of times I wrote about wanting a deeper intimacy with the Lord, asking Him to take me to the next level. Specifically, in January of 2013, I asked that He help me to see Him in all aspects of my day.  In April 2014 I asked Him to help me to turn to Him first in times of distress.  I asked to be so in tune with Him that joy will override my pain.  Another time I asked to know His love and comfort.  There were many more similar requests.  As is often the case with me, the answers to my prayers would be accessed through increased pain.   I recently reached a new level of challenge with Lyme disease that brought me more despair and anxiety than I had previously experienced. It was precisely then that I began to see that my prayers were being answered.

The fall and winter of 2014 was a very difficult time for me.  Once again, my husband Tim was dangerously ill with septicemia.  His knee replacement had become infected and the bacteria was raging through his body. The next few months were challenging as he recovered and endured 2 more surgeries to address the infection in his knee.  I was his caregiver, and the demands on my already weakened body seemed more than I could handle. Each footstep was met with sharp pain starting in my feet, then coursing through my body. The chronic fatigue syndrome was so profound that just lifting my arms was too much. When I experience a time of physical and emotional challenge, my immune system weakens and the Lyme disease flourishes. I become weak and ill.  That's when I begin to feel anxiety and fear.  For reasons I did not understand at the time, I did not feel the Lord's closeness like I did in similar situations in the past.  I never doubted that He was there, but I felt something was missing in me. I felt that my prayers were weak, only being able to say to the Lord, "Help me."  I found fault with myself because I could not pray more effectively or eloquently.  Over a year later,  the Holy Spirit has given me some insight into this situation.

As the months went by, my health started to improve a bit.  By the next fall, I was doing well enough that I could dance with my son at his wedding. That meant so much to me.  It was a true miracle.  It had been years since I could do something like that.  Then, suddenly, inexplicably, the pain and illness came back, but this time much worse than I had ever experienced before.  My feet could not tolerate touch of any kind.  A new symptom also emerged, too. I had unrelenting pain in the pelvic floor muscles.  Those are the ones we sit on when we ride a bike.  The pain is internal as well as external. It is sharp, deep ,persistent, burning pain.  Sitting is almost impossible. Once again, my world was shrinking.  I was already limited as to what I could do.  Now I could hardly leave the house.  I couldn't stand, walk, or sit without increased pain. Lying down hurt. There was nowhere to go to get away from it. No medication prescribed to me helped. I fell into despair. I feared for my future.  Was I always going to be like this?  How can I do it?  I have a grandson now who is the light of my life.  I have a granddaughter on the way.  Would I be able to hold them?  Play with them?  I felt I had to solve this problem quickly.  I went from doctor to doctor, enduring grueling and painful diagnostic testing. Again, as I had done in he past, I felt I had to take charge of this illness and find the right doctor, the right cure.  It hadn't helped then, so why was I trying again?

It was then that the light went on.  My many prayers for a closeness with the Lord had been heard and the eyes of my heart were opening. I came to a realization that I had to take my life back spiritually and emotionally. I needed to recognize God's gifts and be thankful for them every minute in order to defeat my anxious thoughts. I needed to marinate in thoughts of His blessings, and praise Him always.  I knew this before, but not at this new level. I needed to decide whether or not I truly believe that, through Jesus, the enemy's hold on my body and emotions has been defeated. Did I trust God enough to place my painful body in His hands and let Him be my healer?  I said I did, but what did my actions show?  I kept going to doctors, trying new medicines, trying to fix myself.  I realized that I did not really trust the Lord enough to let go.  There is nothing wrong with going to doctors or taking medicine. But, in my case the Lord was asking, " Do you trust me fully?"  It was then that I realized that I could let go.  His mercy, love, compassion and power were more effective than any pill I had taken.  I began to go to Him for relief every single time the pain, fatigue, or fear got to be too much.  Sometime that was every five minutes. Sometimes I asked that I could have relief long enough to sit through a meal.  I asked for the ability to hold my grandson for a few minutes. Or to drive the car, go to church.  I had to take each thought captive over and over in order not to succumb to fear and defeat.  The Lord is my healer.  He knows every cell in my body.  He knows which ones are not working properly.  Only He can touch my body and calm down my wayward pain signals. This is what I do now. I pray as each pain is felt, and as each fear arises. I am sustained that way, experiencing enough relief that I can be consumed by joy instead.

So my "Help me"  prayers last year were certainly heard and answered.  I thought that two words were not enough, however, the minute they were uttered the Lord put in place all the events that would need to happen in order for me to recognize His answer.  There was a moment when I understood what He wanted me to know. It was a few months ago, when my grandson was learning to sit. He was on the floor with his toys when something seemed to be distressing him. For the first time ever, he lifted his eyes and met mine, held up his little arms and said "uh".  He looked to me in his distress, using the only language he knew to say that he recognized me as his help, completely trusting that I would hold him, protect him, and love him. In that moment, my feelings of love for this child were too intense for words, and I am only human.  How much more does God, who IS love, feel when I, His child, trust Him enough to lift my eyes and say, "help me?" 

                                                    I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to
                                                    me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of
                                                    the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he
                                                    set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm
                                                    place to stand.  He gave me a new song in
                                                    my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
                                                    Many will see and fear and put their trust in
                                                    the Lord.  Psalm 40:1-3

Emotional and Spiritual Maturity...They're Connected

I've been reading the book, The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero. It immediately drew me in because it was written by someone who shared my own long held belief that spiritual and emotional health are tightly linked.  In fact, one cannot mature without the other.  The fact that this author is also a pastor made it all the more interesting . 

In my own life, I can look back and see that some of the most rapid and profound spiritual growth periods occured  when I was in Christian counseling with an amazing woman who was gifted with the ability to teach the relationship between Scripture and emotional health.  She took me step by step through the healing process, never veering away from scriptural truths.  I began to know the Lord in a way I never had.  The bible truly is the best authority on psychology.  It's all in there.

Scazzero's book got me thinking again on how I could have maybe sped up the process of getting closer to the Lord in my own life.  He was telling his story from a pastor's point of view, relating how the Lord revealed to him his need to take a look at what was going on inside himself in order to be a healthier leader and teacher.  I think of myself on the receiving end of that.  Assuming that the teaching I have received over the years has been coming from emotionally and spiritually mature leaders,  how come it has taken so long for me to reach a deeper level of intimacy with the Lord?  I believe it is because I had reached a plateau emotionally.  Sermons and teachings that were meant to urge me on to newer levels of intimacy and maturity just were not sinking in.  In fact, I was feeling more and more distant and discouraged that I just could not ever achieve the the things that I should be doing. I felt like a disappointment.  There was something blocking me. I kept trying to get past that blockage by "performing" better. I thought that maybe if I got more involved in church activities, did longer devotions, was kinder to people,  served more, then perhaps I could counteract some of that disappointment.  I still felt that I wasn't knowing God better. I wanted to be close to Him but at the time, I didn't know how to get there. When we were singing in church the other day "more of you, Jesus, more of you..." I was thinking to myself, in years past did I really know what I was asking for in that song?  Did I know what that meant?  If I knew that knowing Him would mean first losing some things that I held dear, like my health, my career, my mobility, would I still be singing that song? Did I know that only by losing these things would the way be made clear to fall in love with Jesus?  I believe the answer is no.  I wasn't there yet. I wasn't fully aware of it, but what I really was thinking was that more of Jesus would be great if it meant feeling good, too.

So where does emotional health fit in to all of this?  It would take pages and pages to explain all that went on with my progression towards emotional maturity (and there still is a lifeime of learning yet to come).  So I will just keep it current.  In a nutshell, I was stuck.  Stuck on some issues from my past that resulted in some false beliefs about myself, such as "I'll never be good enough".  This caused me to interpret teachings from church, and even from Scripture itself as harshly critical at times. I kept on trying to "do better".  Finally, one Sunday morning, when I was feeling like a total failure because I was feeling too ill to go to church, I just reached a point of  despair and frustration. From the depths of my soul, I just cried to Jesus that all I wanted was Him.  I realized for the first time that He was my goal.  Just Him . From there, many emotional healings have occured for me. Scripture tell us that we will find the Lord when we seek him with all of our hearts.  If we come near to Him, He will come near to us.  I found that as long as my heart was tied up with freeing myself from emotional pain, it could not be free to seek all there is in a relationship with the Lord . I think we all do this to varying degrees, and we don't even know it.  I realized much of my daily life centered around things such as trying to please other people in order to feel good about myself.  In other cases I put up emotional barriers to protect myself from hurt.  There are many other ways that we keep our hearts too busy emotionally to include God.  For some it is to be achievement oriented.  The more we can accomplish in our career, church, etc., the better we feel emotionally.  Scazzero says, "To truly love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength requires that we know not only God but also our interior--the nature of our own heart, soul, and mind."

In my case,  a profound growth period began with my cry to have more of Jesus which came from deep within my heart.  It was genuine. I came near to Him in a new, more honest way, so He came near to me. I knew that in the past I greatly benefitted from learning from other people who were further down the road in their walks with the Lord. Some of these people are psychologists or counselors who wrote books. Some were just people who walked in faith and wrote.  So I began to read .  I chose to trust the Holy Spirit to be my Counselor, just like Scripture says He is.   He led me to some amazing authors, such as Leslie Vernick, Ruth Graham, Henry Cloud, John Townsend, John Eldredge, Larry Crabb, just to name a few.  They all apply Scriptural truth to their personal stories or teachings about emotional and spiritual maturity.  I learned from them.  An amazing thing happened.  I began to understand the Bible in a new way, seeing it with new eyes.  It seemed like the more emotional clutter that was removed from my heart, the more I understood and applied God's message to me in His Word.  I experienced many revelations of His character, and better understood His instruction.  I am so looking forward to watever else He has to teach me.

Looking Forward to Heaven

Well, the lidcaine treatment didn't work!  The first treatment resulted in no change whatsoever, and the second one put me in the emergency room!  The lidocaine is given intravenously over a period of one hour in the doctor's office. You are hooked up to a heart monitor because it also is used as a heart medication to treat arrhythmias.  They have to be aware of any cardiac changes.  The first time, all the medication did was make me sleepy.  The second time, I very quickly started to feel drowsy and dizzy. Then I felt pain in my chest, and my left arm and neck.  At first I ignored it because I am used to feeling random pains everywhere.  But then it increased in intensity and my heart raced.  I told them to stop the infusion.  They sent me to the ER, where I spent the afternoon.  Tests revealed no heart attack.  It remains a mystery as to why I felt those symptoms.  I'm just happy that I had my husband with me at the doctor's.  I needed to have him close by.

So it appears that no pain relief will be coming just yet.  I am disappointed of course, but not devastated.  I just wanted so much to look forward to enjoying my daughter's wedding in May.  I actually am very worried that I won't be able to make it through the day.  I get very ill just going to someone else's wedding, and that's just going to the reception. How will I get through the preparations, picture taking, ceremony, guest greeting, reception, etc. when my limit for being out of bed is only one to two hours?  It's just too physically demanding.  I have to let go and trust.

All of this makes me think a lot about heaven.  It may be that my healing will not occur until then.  Heaven is becoming more real to me.  Previously, I couldn't really get a grasp on it's reality.  It was more of an idea than fact.  My brain just could not grasp it.  I know from Scripture that there will be no pain or sorrow.  We will experience God personally and be in His presence.  There will be joy beyond comprehension.  I am understanding now how the things I find a little joy in right now are just little glimspses of what Eternity will be like. I find joy in God's beautiful creation in nature.  That is just a tiny indication of the beauty I will experience in Heaven that will take my breath away.  I find joy when people love me, and I can love back.  In heaven that joy will be multiplied without end when I am in the presence of Love Himself.  We are created to treasure relationships in anticipation for the ultimate relationship with our Lord.  I crave peace, happiness, freedom, pain relief, a sense of transcendance from the difficulties of earth. These are desires the Lord has given me to remind me that this is not my home.  He has created us for life with Him, and that is what our souls long for.  It is a reminder that we are here only as sojourners.  Our real life is yet to come.  In the meantime He continues to give me glimspses of Heaven as encouragement that He has a beautiful plan for my eternal life.

What Would Happen If I Were Healed?

This coming week, I will be receiving a new treatment for nerve pain. It involves the infusion of IV  lidocaine over a period of time.  It's not a common treatment, and from what they tell me, different people get different results, some more successful than others.  I decided I really don't have anything to lose, so I'll try it.  My pain has been increasing at an alarming rate. I now need a power chair for my house since my stool with wheels is getting too painful to use.  I do still walk occasionally outside my home for a few yards, if it's on grass.  Apart from a slight limp, most people would not even notice I am having difficulty.  If I go more than a few yards, however, it becomes obvious.  Most of the time, however, I am able to mask the pain.  Who would want to be around a person who is always grimacing?  More often than not, I just become very quiet.

As I thought about receiving this treatment, I began to wonder what would happen if it worked.  How would it feel to be pain free?  I tried to remember a time when that was the case.  I can't even remember what it was like.  I imagine I would feel very light.  I would probably have a lot more energy without battling the pain every minute. My life would probably change.  What would it be like to leave the house casually, without weighing every move?  I would feel so free. I would just appreciate letting the bedsheet touch my feet and just having it feel like a bedsheet, not like the grinding of gravel!  I would be able to rest.

I want to make something very clear.  God is good.  I'm saying that now, before I know the outcome of this new treatment.  He's good if He takes away my pain, and He is good if He doesn't.  In fact, I consider this whole illness situation to be His gift to me.  He removed the things that were distacting me from Him, like a career, freedom of activity, socializing, etc.  Instead, He made me aware that He wants a relationship with me.  When I had very little left in the way of health and activity, I asked for more of Him, which He is giving me.  And there is so much more of Him that He still wants to give.

So, now I am thinking, what will happen if I suddenly became able to do all of those earthly things again?  Will I become so busy with them that I will forget my journey with the Lord?  I was thinking the other day, if I had a choice between being healed and forgetting about my walk, or staying in pain and growing more, what would I choose?  Wow.  I wanted to be honest in my answer, so I took a long time to ponder that.  I realized that I can't give up my pursuit for intimacy with God.  To do that would make my life empty and pointless.  It's very, very hard to imagine my life with never ending physical pain.  Especially lately.  But I remind myself that I will not be alone in it.  God will hold my hand through it. He will lead me to places in His heart that I have yet to experience.

Who is The Holy Spirit, Anyhow?

Since my last post I have been experiencing many thoughts and feelings.  I have been trying to make sense of them all, and to pay attention to what they are telling me. I became aware of how deeply I still grieve for the healthy body and lifestyle of my past. I believed I had adjusted well and accepted my situation, but the longing for pain free, active living was apparently still alive in me.  I became despondant.  My focus more often centered around what I can't do, and how much pain I feel on a daily basis.  I also began to feel lonely.

What I find interesting is that prior to my last post, I had prayed to reach a yet deeper level of intimacy with the Lord.  I craved more of Him.  I knew that with such a prayer, I could expect some sort of upheaval in my life.  Also, this is when I could expect to hear from the Holy Spirit, and I needed to keep my spiritual eyes, ears, and heart open for His presence and instruction. 

Who is the Holy Spirit?  Several years ago I asked myself that question.  I had no trouble praying to the Father and the Son,  but who exactly was this Spirit?  Growing up, I was taught to pray, saying, "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit".  But the best I could figure out, He was a white bird that floats above one's head. Then later on, as an adult, I attended evangelical churches.  There, as I heard people describe the Spirit, it appeared that He may have been an Essence that "sweeps through" a room.  In my head I was picturing something like fairy dust sprinkling over us in church.  There was one woman that left our church because she claimed the Holy Spirit wasn't there since no one except her ever fainted on the floor "in the Spirit".  Other people speak in tongues.  There were discussions as to whether a person is saved at the moment of accepting Jesus, or later at a "baptism of the Spirit".  The list of descriptions goes on and on.  So I decided to see for myself, and went to the most reliable source, Scripture. There, I learned that  The Spirit is a Person.  He is the third Person of the Trinity.  Among many other things, He is my Counselor, my Teacher, and my Guide to Truth.  He is Truth.  He is very real and desires a real relationship with us. 

So, it is with this knowlege that I go to Him when I need guidance, or clarification if I am confused about something in my life.  I go to Him when my thoughts are so jumbled up in my head that I don't even know how to articulate them into a prayer. He articulates for me. I go to Him when I am hurting and want to see the Father's hand in my situation.  Such was the case with my experience of the "missed opportunity for women's ministry" written about in my last post.  The intense feelings of grief, sadness and rejection seemed disproportionate to the actual event.  And they stayed around for many days.  I know enough to see that these feelings came as a result of the presence of evil in this world. He pounced on me, eager to destroy any possibility for growth in my Christian walk.  I had a choice.  I could go with these feelings, isolate myself some more in order to protect myself from being disappointed by people, and be mad at God.  I could focus on my impaired physical condition and stay depressed and resentful about it. Or I could be still and wait for the Holy Spirit to speak.  I won't lie.  It was a battle in my mind for a couple of weeks.  It was not a pleasant time.  However, throughout this time, I did ask in my prayer journal more than once for the Holy Spirit to guide me, teach me, and give me clarity about this experience. I had complete confidence that He would answer this prayer.  I just had to be patient and listen.

Gradually, my thoughts started to clear, and I was reminded of something I had read in the book Waking the Dead by John Eldredge.  He was speaking about the effect of painful experiences from our early life that cause us to feel pain as adults.  He says, "The lessons that have been laid down in pain can only abe accessed in pain.  Christ must open the wound, not just bandage it over.  Some times He will  take us there by having an event repeat itself years later, only with new characters in the current situation...these are all invitations to go with Him into the deep waters of the heart, uncover the lies that are buried down there, and bring in the truth that will set us free.  Don't just bury it quickly; ask God what He is wanting to speak to."  God was speaking to me.  He was addressing feelings that I had carried around for a lifetime, and offering me an opportunity to see them for the lies that they are, and offering me healing from them.  Because I am older now, more mature in my faith, and more familiar with God's voice, I have better tools for handling negative feelings.  It is an ongoing process, and probably will be for a long time.  I have accepted the invitation from the Holy Spirit to to join Him in healing and moving forward in the journey of knowing God better.  I feel the freedom that comes from trusting that the Lord is good.

The Pain of Isolation

Perhaps the most painful aspect of chronic illness is the isolation that it causes.  I recently had an experience that brought that fact so close to home that the wounds I feel as a result are very, very deep.  The odd nature of my disability is isolating. By this I mean that there is not only the pain factor, but also profound exhaution which prevents me from experiencing fellowship.  I have very few opportunities to socialize with other women.  Shopping trips, luncheons, gatherings, retreats, are all beyond what my body can do, especially if they are at night. What makes it worse is that I don't look sick, so I fear that other people may interpret my absence as lack of interest or desire for relationships.  The opposite is true.  I especially miss the special beauty that fellowship among
women provides. Not only do I miss it, I crave it.

There was an opportunity to participate in a ministry that I felt passionate about. I was familiar with the unique content. I had been journeying a very long time with the related issues. But I was journeying alone. I wanted so much to travel this leg of the journey with friends.  I was sure the Lord provided this ministry just for me, since it encompassed precisely the type of growth and healing I have been experiencing over recent years.  When I learned of it, I was so excited. There was only one problem.  It was at night. But I wanted to take part, so I took a step out in faith and decided to sign up anyway. I would trust that the Lord would work it out.  But what happened next disappointed me.  Not only did I not feel well enough to go, but I experienced one of the worst flareups of symptoms I have had, and it lasted long enough that I missed the beginning of this ministry.  When I finally could see myself clear (it feels to me sort of like waking up out of a coma), I looked forward to then joining the ministry, but found out that it was closed.  The intensity of my reaction surprised me.  I was crushed, brokenhearted.  I cried for days.  The impact that my disability has on my life hit me hard.  The illness was directly responsible for me missing out on an opportunity to form relationships, and to glorify the Lord by sharing with this particular group how He has worked in my life, along with offering support and encouragement to those attending. Not to mention that I needed to be ministered to.  Why would God let this happen?  Why would He make available the exact ministry I needed at this exact time in my life, and then not let me participate?  How can a door to healing and fellowship be closed?  I don't know.  All I do know is that it hurts.

Often when we are hurt deeply, we take a self-protective stance.  We react in ways that attempt to ensure we will never be hurt like that again.  These wounds often begin in childhood, and in our minds we confirm them over and over even into adulthood (one of the Enemy's favorite tactics).  Thus my feelings of not being "good enough" surfaced.  I played over and over in my head messages like, "There must be something wrong with me.  Why couldn't I just be strong enough to overcome the illness to join the group in time?  I don't really matter to them."   My tendency toward self protection against the pain of these thoughts was to want to lash out.  I was angry.  I wanted to yell, "What do you MEAN I can't come?"  Additionally, I have moments of self protective thoughts like, "I'm done with ministries.  If they don't want me, they won't get me.  I'll just withdraw (emotionally as well as physically).  Then I don't have to feel the pain of rejection again."

My challenge right now is to remember that to withdraw, to lash out, to put up a self protective wall would be exactly what the Enemy would have me do.  Because where there are walls, there cannot be love.  I have learned this through a very long journey of hurt and healing. That's why it was so important to me to share in this ministry. I do not understand why events played out the way they did,
but I trust the Holy Spirit will reveal to me in time what my role and responsibility is in this.  He always does.

As We Heal

It seems that so often I begin my posts with a statement about how I haven't written in a while because I'm not feeling well enough.   This one is no exception.  These past few weeks have been among the most challenging of my life so far.  Tim's healing was extremely slow.  The degree of weakness he experienced due to the infection was profound.  Caring for him was an extreme challenge to my own weakened body.  Pushing myself to keep going every day caused my immune system to weaken, which resulted in a strong flareup of my Lyme symptoms.  The feelings of weakness, pain, and exhaustion are overwhelming at times.  My daily life right now is quite restricted, needing to rest in bed at least 7 hours a day.  If I try to push, I get sicker.  So, typing on the computer has been difficult.  On a good day I need to lay down on my back with the laptop propped up on pillows on my legs in order to type with minimal pain.  I complain about my foot pain so much that I don't often mention the significant pain in my head, neck and shoulders that is always there every day.  Yet, I have to say that there was a sweetness about caring for my husband, and for him to receive the care. A bond that began almost 40 years ago was further strengthened by the experience.  I am happy to say that at present, he is doing well.  He had his PICC line removed.  No more walking around with an IV bag!   Thank you all for your prayers. He still tires easily, and walking is uncomfortable, but he is so much better.  he will not be out of the woods for several months, however.  He still takes oral antibiotics.  The doctors have said that the infection can come back and the knee joint may have to be replaced.

There were many times throughout this ordeal that I felt that the weight of it was too much to bear.  I am going to be absolutely honest here. Even with my ever growing faith, I still had bouts of feeling alone and distanced from God.  The truths that I knew, such as, that God is always with me, He is our Healer, He is working things together for our good, and for His purposes, He can give us peace...comforted me to a degree, but I was still miserable.  I think sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that by saying these truths, we should automatically get lifted out of our trial.  We think that the current situation should be removed.  Don't get me wrong, the Lord can and does do that in many cases.  But for many, the trial is necessary as He molds us into the image of Christ. I found that rather than looking to find the peace and presence of God by having my situation changed, or my mood to lift, I had to open my eyes to other areas of my life and my heart to see where God was at work.  I found that there were wonderful gifts awaiting me.  For instance, I suddenly had the ability to read scripture in a different way. Because of my deepening relationship with the Lord, I started reading scripture from the point of view of a message from someone I knew well. Previously, I had been reading it kind of the same way I would be reading an encyclopedia.   To gain knowlege.  To find out the facts.   To find out the truths about our  Lord.  Of course all of that is absolutely necessary, but it wasn't enough.  I also often felt like it was a book of rules  that I just could never seem to get right. Many times I didn't trust myself to read and interpret on my own. I thought I needed someone else more knowlegable to make sure I was getting it right. Now, instead, I am able to go with confidence and familiarity to the Scriptures and hear what is being said to me personally. I was reading it as if the Lord were smiling at me as He gently explained to me His plan for us.  I now know Him not only as my creator, but as my friend.  If my friend writes me a letter, I'm really interested in what they want to say to me.  I really want to know what is on their heart.  I read it with a sense of familiarity and confidence in the relationship we have. Going to the Bible from that mindset opened up a new level of intimacy.  Suddenly the words and concepts made more sense.  I was more easily able to apply the truths to what was happening in my own life.  It became a book I couldn't put down.  I enjoyed it and wanted to know more. I didn't feel like I was just reading out of a sense of duty.  This new experience was the precious gift that God gave me at the same time I was going through the rough trial.  The trial was still going on, and was painful, but something more beautiful was being given to me.  This gift acted as my strength, my "fuel" to press on.  This particular trial is ending, but the gift given to me during it, will last my lifetime.