Jesus, My Saving Grace, as Long as Life Endures

So, I’m a little tentative to put some things on my blog.  However; this is how I cope, and I wanted to share all Jesus’ reassurings he’s been showing me and giving me lately.  It is okay when you struggle with anything.  We live in a broken world, and life wouldn’t be lived well without struggles.  Keep on, keeping on!  Also, pray.  — Anna

 

The flooding waters are black with despair and illness.  Depression cuts through the waves and tries to take down any person it can.  I see my sister sinking.  “Help her, Jesus!  Pick her up!”  And he does.  But she is still in the water.

“You were sinking?” a doc asked my sister.  What if she begins to sink again? he wonders to himself.  And so a life boat is called to retrieve her.  It’s not a real life boat, though.  It’s a fleshful, temporary vessel.  I call upon the life boat that saves and redeems, the true God who cares for each of his children even more than any could imagine.  He can use the temporary vessel and anything he wants to so that his work can be done.  I don’t see my sister.

I am sitting on a life raft, as well.  The MS that inhibits my body tries to pull me down into the waters.  Depression splashes onto my body, too, but the real life boat has pulled me out of the waters before.  I see my sister clinging to the real life raft she had been on before, as all go with the other life boat.

“The waters had come up to my neck, but you saved me, oh God,” I whisper.  “There is no foothold in these miry depths, and one grows weary crying out to you.  But you answered me with your salvation, as you do so often.  Your great love rescues me from the mire and delivers me from the deep, black waters.  Now come near to my sister and rescue her, as well.”  (From Psalm 69)

I had never known what it was like, being the sister of someone with MS, like mine.  I’m the diagnosed person, but I think I understand.  MS affects everyone, as does every illness or disease flesh suffers from.  I helplessly watch her being taken away, and there is nothing I can do as they send me home.  I worry like crazy about her, and I plead with the real life boat’s captain.  “Anna,” he tells me, “I totally got this.  Just trust me.”

I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving (Ps 69:30).  I worship him.  “Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, oh God.  Do not forget the helpless (Ps 10:12).  I cry to you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.  Those who know your name trust in you (Ps 9:10).

“The Lord has promised good to me; his Word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures” (Amazing Grace, verse 4) He will my raft and sails be, long after found are cures.  As long as life endures.

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