After visiting a friend who lives everyday from her hospital bed at home, I can't get our conversation out of my head. Everyday is a fight to stay alive for her. She has a timer that goes off to remind her to inject the medications that keep her stable into her IV tube. She is so knowledgeable - and has to be - since she is the only person we are aware of that lives with two extremely life threatening disorders. She compares her fight to the podcasts she loves from a Navy Seal recounting life and death struggles.
But it is not watching how proficient she is at caring for her complex needs that stands out, but her resilient spirit! And how she and her husband have created a home with huge picture windows so she can look out over the farm from her bed. They also designed the doorways wide enough to wheel her bed into the main floor rooms.
We were talking about purpose. She was having a low day as she contemplated her contribution to the world. She had so many dreams of ways to give and serve - and so many beautiful gifts to offer. Yet, her days have shrunk to survival.
As I listened, I so resonated with all she was saying. When I first got so sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I remember asking God if I was still part of the Body of Christ if I was a non functioning part. I remember the picture I got of how the body adapts to compensate for limits in any member. How my value didn't rest in my productivity. It was a relearning - 'to be' instead of just 'to do'.
I saw myself as a little girl striving to please her Father. I would run from the room to grab the drawing I made to show Him, or show off my latest ability: "Watch this!" Running - always running!
But Chronic Fatigue was my stop sign as I learned to realize that God was not less pleased with my stillness. That just being present with God and listening and learning was a vital life giving space.
My friend and I reminded each other of the short span of our life compared with eternity. That becoming who we are meant to be and learning to love the One who formed us is a great purpose.
In fact it lines up strongly with the greatest commandments that Jesus taught about: Love God. Love Others as Yourself. To grow more loving - to be in tune with God's creative plans and pray alongside them and watch them unfold - to be the best we can even in the midst of deep pain and suffering... to not lose sight of who we are even in our diminished state. To live in such a way that our life here is just an extension of "God's will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." To delight in goodness, beauty, purity, passion, creativity, reconciliation, justice and peace... This is purpose enough for all of us, I think.
My friend is a vibrant spirit big enough to fill a stadium... but confined to a tiny frail frame that disappoints and constrains her. One day we will shuffle off this mortal coil, and she will love the 'glorified body' she gets to trade for this temporary tent. Her spirit will be so unrestrained and free to express the expanse that is her.
Until then, each day here is a chance to keep that spirit alive - pliant, loving, and aligned with God's best in the gift of each day - even when we have to fight through pain and suffering - and hold one another up - to see it.
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