Sedentary Service

I wrote this in 2015 but find myself much in the same position. This summer I had a failed finger surgery, which has left me with pain and limited use of my middle and index finger on my right hand. Then, I fell and fractured my wrist and two fingers on y left hand. Needless to say, I couldn’t do much. I just felt this article was so appropriate for such a time as this. 

Late at night in a room lit by heart monitors, I sat with my critically ill baby. The soft beeping and rhythmic pumping of the machine was the only sound I heard as the doctor came in for his last visit of the day. He was Australian and had won our hearts with his care of our Rebecca and his straight-forward manner. He wasn’t a touchy feely kinda guy, but as I held my breath, waiting for the next heartbeat and then the next, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Buck up, old girl.” We knew we might lose her, but somehow those words rang true as we looked to handling this situation. Knowing the strength was available to us through God, we would be able to “buck up”.

So often those words have come back to me when I faced difficulty. Kind of like a great leader I know who says, “Oh, just put on your big-boy pants and get on with it.” Those of us who are Martha’s find great comfort in checking tasks off lists, moving forward, working, accomplishing, and doing stuff that is physical proof of our “bucking up.”

But what if you’re a Martha and you can’t do stuff? What if you are suddenly physically limited and can’t even find your big boy pants under the dust bunnies, much less put them on? This summer I couldn’t buck up. Because of my unyielding back brace and restrictions, I could sit on the couch and wait. I couldn’t deliver, accomplish, achieve, or serve in my traditional ways. So, I wanted to at least suffer well. I wanted to be like our great patriarchs, who write of the extraordinary blessings of finding God in the hard places. I wanted so much to be like Charles Spurgeon, who writes about his extreme physical suffering and how during his worst pain God met Him in a dramatic and deep way that he could not experience outside of the pain. 

But I don’t feel like I ever really got it right. But missionaries are supposed to do this suffering thing really well. It’s one thing that sets us apart from the rabble—this suffering with grace thing. Well, I never got there. I never felt God in that extraordinary way, never transcended above my limitations to heaven heights of bliss, never felt that I had been to a place in prayer that would forever change my relationship with God. No one met God because of my surgery; I didn’t use all the couch time in fervent prayer and I can’t even tell you what I read.

So, did I fail? Well, that’s really not the point. What I’ve walked away from all this with is that God is still God, He is still good and He is sovereign. I may not have experienced what I wanted to, nor did I reach the spiritual heights for which I hoped. But I can still say that I know He’s not surprised by any of my suffering and He still will work it for good. For this season (please Lord, let it be a season, not a decade) I am sedentary. I am not a Mary yet, sitting by choice at His feet, but I am serving Him in the way He called me to serve Him today—this is His sedentary service for me. And knowing that it’s His choice is enough.