Grrr's and Blessings
If I listed all my "pet peeves" I could probably fill up the whole of the www. blogs! But this is one, that keeps coming up persistently.
Most folks have busy lives of one degree or another. I think we all do. Yet for some reason, I find it seems to be assumed by the majority, that if one does not have a spouse, kids, (a pet hamster come to that!) and if one is battling illness and doesn't go out to work, you just can't be busy by other people's standards! (hogwash!)
Most of my waking time is spent on the computer, as basically I am doing a lot of research, trying to get a web design business up and running, and have in mind to write at least one paper on some of the things I believe Biblically. My illness makes it hard to keep to a schedule of any kind, as one day is rarely like another. This morning I thought death was a real possibility or perhaps something worse. (a major stroke or something else similar) yet none of the above adds up to "unbusy"
Its a little like when folks call around unexpected in the middle of the day, they assume because I don't fit the norm as to what fits busy, I can quite easily give up an hour to chat and stuff, when in fact I'm trying to do many of the above things. I never refuse to see anyone unless on health grounds, but it is a faulty assumption on their part. If in a place of work, with an employer on the prowl, no one would just stop by for an hour or so, to chat about completely unrelated stuff.
The fact is, I am sicker than ever before in my life, and it would be easy to give up and do nothing, and let the illness control what I do and don't do. But if giving up had have been an option, I wouldn't have made it past my teen years, let alone got to the other side of them, and done more than just survive. And I'm actually busier than every before. With both personal stuff, and in my own small way, trying to do stuff as the Lord leads to advance His Kingdom.
If giving up on anything had have been an option. When my illness first started to get worse, and I read for hours, and basically understood not one jot of what I read, as words in that form made little sense to me, the books would have gone. I still have no memory for the most part after about 30 mins of much I read, yet as reading it does make sense, and somehow, I know from life situations that have come up, that consciously the memory may not be there, yet it is in here somewhere. There have been umpteen points in case to demonstrate this.
The memory issues are probably the most frustrating from day to day. I can't tell you the hours in a day I will often "waste" from my point of view at times, looking for something that was in my hand just a few seconds before. Its frustrating and grrrrr making.
Yet the reading, I wonder if particularly that was THE test from God. As to not read would have included The Bible. And knowing that, kept pushing on. And He has blessed me richly for it. As tho memory of reading is still very precarious, I now read and enjoy and understand as its being read, and find more enjoyment out of reading, than probably very little else. Outside of Scripture the Puritan writers are never far away, and a must read in my opinion, for people who want to learn to use applications from Scripture. Two books a week is often my average. And for someone who when very young was an avid reader, and then went twelve years without reading anything cos the problems with reading and understanding were present but didn't know why at the time, it speaks to me of God's goodness and power. Especially after the twelve years of drought as far as reading was concerned, the first book to be picked up was the Bible, and somehow, despite everything at the time, especially being in a state of utter unbelief, I got through every word in it.
Okay, so I digressed and tangented! But the bottom line is, cos someone may not fit the 'norm' in what a lifestyle represents, don't pidgeon hole them into what you assume. In many cases it may be right, (I know this from folks I have known well) but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as business and something to aim at, is what keeps me plugging on from day to day. Nothing like a goal being reached when you get there. And like with the persisting with reading, when it did at the time seem pretty pointless, I believe that God will bless for it, in some way! And think sometimes the sheer hardness and difficulties that present themselves from day to day, is cos God knows exactly what I need to keep me going. And the word "no" which is often what getting over the difficulties seem to represent, have always spurred me on to say, "why not?" "will if I want!" And they continue to do so.
