September 07, 2007
Patience
Although she has a whole laundry list of problems, my 61 year-old sister seldom shows a hint of having a bended knee toward the Lord. Diagnosed bipolar, she’s also addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs. Over the last few years she’s undergone surgery, radiation and chemo at separate times for both lung cancer and a brain tumor. At one point her prognosis was six months to a year – that was 17 months ago. Right now she is in ICU after having mixed a cocktail of wine and prescription meds. Physically and mentally her outlook is grim. Spiritually speaking, you’d think that any one of the obstacles in her life would have sent her on a quest for the Lord. No wonder the Lord is patient – He’s dealing with a lot of slow learners!
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Gail;
-----I shared some of your sister’s habits when I was in my early twenties, except I had a bended knee towards the Lord in my heart and sometimes physically, and I abhorred alcohol. I think a lot of my bipolar problem at that time was indirectly caused by drug abuse. And even though I can look back on the few years it took me to completely beat the drug abuse and see them as a quick response compared to the number of years since, I still find other behaviors in my life in regard to which I am extremely slow.
-----I look at the enjoyment value of the behaviors I do now that lack brightness and those I did then. I don’t really see much value in them. Yet there is something about them that to be without is discomforting. I often wonder if the brain is such a biological computer that it simply must produce its activity in the same patterns and sequences that it always has, regardless of the pain generated, yanking and dragging the poor will with it like a sissy rag doll. I wonder if there are two things the tendencies of the brain avoid at all costs: inactivity, and new patterns and sequences. Then obversely, I wonder if the will rides the brain like a domineering cowboy, yanking the reigns and spurring the flanks. Stored somewhere in that poor horse might be patterns and sequences that would throw the hapless rider if they could be found and gathered in the face of all the spurring and yanking.
-----Either way, I find in myself a whole lot of wishing and praying, sometimes even a lot of working, for the breaking of old habits. And whether these habits lead to the destruction of the physical body, the destruction of the physical estate, or both, they represent a dangerous disconnect with the Lord. Not that we ever were fully connected, or ever could hope to be before that twinkling of an eye, but it leaves one wondering how much disconnect will the Lord tolerate before the eternal life of the spirit becomes doomed. More than anything, that is what always brings my knees back to the floor over bad habits. Whether the will is the rag doll or the cowboy, the Spirit has joined with ours. Through the peaceful patience of that connection, eventually, the inner rodeo should at least slow down.
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