Look Unto Jesus

I remember it vividly, the bitter tears the realization my life had taken a horrible turn for the worse. I was ill beyond belief. My active lifestyle had screeched to halt and I was clueless as to what was wrong. So were my doctors. Gripped with fear of the unknown, I was unable to sleep, unable to walk further than from the bed to my kitchen without pain and exhaustion. I lay in bed and sobbed. This couldn’t be me. This couldn’t be my life. Not me. Please. That was twelve years ago and many days of crying out to the Lord and the prayers of others and shear determination and most of all being lead step by step by Jesus I have over come. Over the years that followed Jesus has become increasing real to me, his guidance increasingly clear. The story of my healing is too long to share in the relatively short writing. In the dark night of my soul, I learned to look unto Jesus and the faithful witness of his saints.

Within the first year of my health crisis, before I would be diagnosed with an unspecified autoimmune disease and Fibromyalia, I was blessed to become part of on off campus Sunday School class that was studying Lord, I Want to Know You, Kay Arthur’s study of the names of God. A very powerful study, it will rock your world. It did mine.
Adonai was the name we studied that morning. (Genesis 15:2) The LORD, your Lord and Master. I learned I “could never know the refuge of His arms without first bowing my knees and acknowledging His right to rule over me.” (p. 55)

Genesis 15: 1-6
God's Covenant With Abram
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
"Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield, your very great reward. "
2 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Once we see Abram’s acknowledgement of God as Lord and Master, his acts of faith are more comprehensible. Knowing Adonia is the beginning of a servant’s heart, the key to faith, not faith in our faith, but faith in the Lord. Abram understood there were benefits as well as responsibilities in the Master servant relationship. (p. 59-58) ”Because Abram has the Lord as his master, he need not fear, for the master acts as his shield. The master rewards his servant.” (p. 58)

I came that morning with a heavy heart, a weary soul and a body that did not allow me to express my true self. I was a shadow of the person he had created me to be. I came hungry for any word, any sense of hope or inspiration I might find. A beautiful white haired woman sat across from me, a former missionary to South Africa. She spoke those words I came to hear; words that pierced by heart and opened for me a new conversation with the Lord.

Psalm 123
A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to you,
to you whose throne is in heaven.
2 As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
till he shows us his mercy.
3 Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy on us,
for we have endured much contempt.
4 We have endured much ridicule from the proud,
much contempt from the arrogant.

She softly explained. “We are to keep our eyes on Jesus; our hearts acknowledging him as Lord and Master, our eyes upon his as a servant watches in anticipation for his master to call him into service. We wait expectantly. When he beckons we respond. We do this until he has mercy upon us. We endure.” This would become if you will, my recipe for healing. As he called me first to pray for those who were like myself chronically ill; he gave me strength. Not yet fully recovered he led me into Women’s Ministry where I began to teach his word, into missions, into leadership and as always to prayer. Slowly over the years I regained my strength and except in times of prolonged stress I am relatively symptom free. She is one of those who sits among my great cloud of witnesses who points and says, “Look unto Jesus.”

Written Jan. 2006. I was looking for something else and I found this. I had just returned to church for the first time.

The reasons I came back were simple I wanted to be dealt with Biblically, I did not want to run away from my problems. I came back to clear my name and make people deal with me, not things said about me, but me. If they had a problem with me, I was there and it could be worked out. That is what the Bible says, not leave and go to another church and pretend nothing happened.
People have assigned many motives to me and my actions. But I was simply silently defending myself by being present among you. I wanted to be with my support group, I wanted to be with my church family. I served you 14 years.