My Godsend of a Headache

Thought I would let that last post sink in a bit. I've heard from people who didn't even know Mom that my tribute brought them to tears. The post was more for my own sake than anyone else, but I'm glad that the blogosphere made it possible for you to read it as well.

Now, some time removed from all that happened, it's been hard to plug back into life and ministry. Coming off my second week back in ministry with UNC IV, I wish I could say I'm loving life, feeling great, and fully recovered from all that my family and I went through last month. But that would be a bald-faced lie.

Truth be told, after one week of work, a huge headache came on that has now been plaguing me for an entire week. I've had a fever, inexplicable fatigue, a sore throat, and I've woken up every night this week freezing cold but soaked in sweat. My doctor attributes it to stress, but ordered a brain MRI for me yesterday just to be safe. The results are pending.

For years, in moments of crisis, my sister and I have been the solid rocks for our family. I would say that Ashley holds everything together on the logistical, practical side of things. Me, I'm more on the spiritual side of things. To divorce anything from the divine presence of the Lord would be a huge mistake, and I have always felt my role to be making sure we remain centered in the Lord throughout moments of crisis. I think we've always tried to occupy these positions of fortitude outside of ourselves. I know, at least, that I have. Make sure everyone else is good, worry about myself later. And then "later" never actually becomes "now," and eventually just becomes "never." Nothing wrong with that, right? Shoot, that's noble, selfless, righteous. And a little thing I like to call spiritual suicide.

Finally, it's all beginning to catch up with me. And the many attempts the Lord has made to communicate my erring ways to me have failed, so he had to be a little more obvious. Headaches and night sweats it is. Just last week, my co-worker and friend Alex spoke to our students on the story from Mark 2 about the four friends who bring their paralytic friend to Jesus so that he can find healing. There's so many people in the house Jesus is in that they can't get in, and so instead of go in through the front door, they cut a hole in the roof and lower him down on a mat right to the feet of the Lord. He ended his talk with a challenge. There are typically three ways we struggle in regards to this passage, what Alex calls "Mat-independence (I don't need to be on the mat; I'm not paralyzed!)", "Mat-addiction (I don't ever want to get up)", and "The Carolina Way (I need to always be carrying the mat, never lying on it myself, never admitting vulnerability or weakness)." We all had the chance to respond by writing our particular struggle on an index card, and submitting it to a makeshift mat, symbolically submitting it to the Lord. I knew immediately my issue. I wrote on my card, "Time to get up." See, I always think I'm being too weak, too vulnerable, and that I just need to toughen up.

So God performed the reverse Chumbawamba on me. "I get back up! I get knocked down again!" And I could've sworn it was time for me to get up from the mat. But one really awful headache and a week's worth of night sweats later, God's put me right back down on that stupid mat. Doesn't he know that I need to be up and at 'em, ready to serve, ready to carry the mat for some other folks?

Actually, he knows more than I ever could about John Farmer. He knows the number of hairs on my head (significantly lower each and every day), as well as the amount of stress in my head, and the amount of sadness in my heart. And he knows that right here is where I need to be right now. So it seems that Fall 2009 is and will continue to be my lesson in doing ministry without the pretty edifice, and doing life with all my deficiencies visible. Should be fun. I have a feeling the following passage will take on a lot more meaning for me over the next few weeks and months...

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. -Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 7-18, English Standard Version

Great, now I have Chumbawamba stuck in my head...