...and I am helped...

"Praise be to the Lord for he has heard my cry for mercy.  The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped." Psalm 28:7

So often I have found myself literally just crying out for mercy.  The pain in my leg can be so severe at times that nothing helps it, and often times I feel as if my toes are being cut off.  I'm not exaggerating, I'm not being melodramatic.  It has been very difficult these past weeks.

I must say, that although I still have a constant arthritic ache that never really goes away in my hip and leg, and although I still feel as if my toes are being removed, I feel I am getting better.  

The good days are lasting longer than they used to.  The bad days are growing fewer and farther between.  I think back to when I first came home from the hospital.  I couldn't get up or down alone.  I couldn't get into or out of bed by myself.  I could barely walk to the kitchen and back.

Now, I'm able to do all sorts of things.  I get in and out of bed, I sleep from side to side, I can maneuver stairs in a normal fashion, although slowly.  I get in and out of the shower and/or bathtub without help.  This week I've even been able to get down on the floor because I can get back up again.

Through all of it - the worst of it especially - the Lord has been my strength.  I have been so weak in my own self that had it not been for God's grace and help, I don't know what I would have done or been like.  

I know that many have been the days and nights when my pain was so great that all I could do was cry out for mercy.  And I know that although my pain was not removed from me completely, his grace sustained me and his love strengthened me.  I have been enabled to handle these trials because of His great love for me.  

There is so much to learn from our trials.  Sometimes we focus so much of our attention of the pain or the circumstance or the situation that we lose sight of how great our God is.  He know he's there, we call out to him, we pray and hope...but still our focus remains on the trial.  When we focus on the trial or the circumstance, sometimes we don't really see God as we should.  The trial seems so large, that God seems so small.  Our situation seems so hopeless that we fail to see Him as the God of hope.  Our pain grows so great, that we fail to remember that He is our healer.

My heart has been so convicted lately of my focus.  I cannot let my heart be consumed by the situation.  I must always fix my eyes on Christ.  Sometimes that is a choice.  It's not always natural.  It's not always easy.  But when we keep our eyes focused on the God of our hope, nothing, absolutely nothing seems hopeless.


I know that in my situation He has been merciful to me.  "He has heard my cry for mercy.  The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped."

Only By His Grace,

Billie