Straws and Camel's Backs.

The whole idea of the Railroad Tracks blog is to keep in mind that every season has it's joys and pains.  As weak human beings, we must learn to walk in the paradox, knowing God has our back.  

It's ironic because I feel as though I'm living directly in the middle of those tracks right now perhaps more than ever.  I can feel the splintering wood rub against my toes as the cool breeze strikes my face...

On the one hand, my life is overflowing with milk and honey...  My husband just got a new job in the precise field he's be dreaming of working in for years now-- a huge answer to prayer.  Not to mention the fact that in 6 days, we will be sitting on a plane, headed to Italy together (a trip we've been talking about for years).   Additionally, I was just hired to write an article for an online journal, something I didn't think was possible...

Life isn't so bad, huh?

But one little flu (on top of my daily Lyme struggle) and I feel completely derailed.

It makes me so frustrated to be so emotionally frail.  You would think that with the blessings God has heaped on me during these past few months, I would be able to look past a tiny bug, right?  But there is something in our nature that always drags us down in the negative, even when the positive is staring us straight in the face.

When I get down to the root of it, I realize it is not just the flu that is getting me down.  That's just the first layer.   When I dig deeper, I realize it is an accumulation of my health struggles for all these years.  I can't tell you how many trips, camps and weekends have been ruined by my Lyme (and how many times I've felt like a burden to those around me on a trip).  

I guess I just thought, because life suddenly seemed to be going well, that maybe, just maybe, I would make it through this trip unscathed...  I think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walking through unbearable temperatures without being touched by the flames...  Why? Because God's protection was over them...

And there I hit a deeper nugget of truth.  Somehow, catching a flu right before a trip makes me doubt God's goodness.  I really have felt his blessing on me and my husband lately and suddenly, I'm sick in bed for days on end again.  It feels like failure.  It feels like God left me. 

But he didn't.  He never does.  He is simply allowing the good and the bad to co-exist.  And yet, somehow, it feels like abandonment.  And I'm not sure how to look at this with the right perspective.  I'm not sure I have it in me to be so positive anymore. 

Have you been there?