When Death Is The Option

I have been reflecting on many of the obstacles and that I have been experiencing lately.

As many of my friends and family know I had a pulmonary embolism in August of 2016.  Over 30% of people that have these die. Most find out about the cause of death in an autopsy. I am alive.

This caused an unexpected rearranging of my priorities, time and capacity to  do things that I used to do.

I have been so tired most of the time. I’ve wondered if I will ever be the same Dave that I was before. Experiencing uncertainty about my future and questions about my mortality.

I found myself saying, “I want to live. I do not want to die…”

Never had that type of conversation within myself before, or even been willing to say that to God. I’ve kinda taken it for granted. Not any more.

After a few months of recovery I began to experience some pain in my right shoulder. “Oh oh”, I thought, I’ve felt this before.

About 15 years ago I had frozen shoulder that may have been caused by an injury that I sustained when I worked out at the gym a bit too hard.

“Please God, not this. It took over a year and half to heal the last time…”

Sure enough, after an MRI and a trip to my orthopedic surgeon, I hear the words. “Mr. McKinney, you have Adhesive capsulitis and frozen shoulder syndrome (FSS).” No surgery, just physical therapy, heat, icing and waiting. It can take up to two years to heal. This on top of clots in my lungs has been a very difficult time for me.

The pain and lack of capacity to do things I used to do, really has hit me hard.

I began to question my own faith in a loving God, who cares for me. What I believe about healing. Is it for me? Am I going to die prematurely? So many questions. How does my faith work into this new set of circumstances?

It hasn’t been easy, but I will say that I have invited the Lord into my pain, questions, anger and confusion.

I help lead a prayer team at my church (Reality SF), I am part of the “soul care” team and do Immanuel Prayer sessions with others and I found myself feeling distant, tired  and unmotivated.

As painful as all of this is , the good news is that there were some things that I had depended on that were being stripped away. I had depended on a “positive outlook” to the point of even denying that I wanted prayer for myself. I was being weaned from being so independent and giving others the idea that I have things together, and not needing anyone.

There was a type of death happening to some of the things that were constructs that I had been trusting in that were not sustainable.

Just being vulnerable is hard, you know. I’ve been hurt before. There was a part of my heart that I was carefully guarding. In a way, I felt as if I had experienced a death of sorts. Death to the places in my heart that refused to bend a knee to love shared by friends and family, and kept me distant and unreal.

Death to the pride that says I don’t need anyone, and I can do this on my own.

Then tonight I spent some time in prayer, and these words came to me.

“Behold I take you down into places that can only be made alive and resurrected by my power and my power alone.

Everything that would hold to the fragile framework of human efforts and capacities, behold I would have you unfold your fingers from grasping and groping, for a corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die says the Lord. You too must die to all your own agendas, works, affairs, schemes and plots to find ways to keep things at the status quo, says your God, for I am doing a new thing in your midst.

It will not look as you imagined, it will be resurrected something completely changed, for this is what a new creation and metamorphosis looks like.

Do not be surprised by the intensity of the process of going down into the ground.

It may feel as if you are dying and alone, but as I have told you the kernel of wheat must die, but if it does it will bring forth much fruit.

Hear the encouragement of your God, a Father who sees the struggle, the pain and the fear of losing something that feels as if you cannot lose. Go down. Go Down.

You are not alone though it feels that way.

Go down into the place of burial and do not be afraid, for what I resurrect will be so much better, so much cleaner, so much more fit for the Masters use.

Beautiful vessels of my mercy and grace with newly formed capacities much like a new wine skin that will adapt to the new wine and stretch as it ferments. You are in a fermenting process.

The grapes have been crushed and thrown together in unexpected ways, and in so doing I will bring forth something new. Something new.

Watch me says the Lord. Watch what I do. How I mold and make you. Let me craft this work. Surrender to the process. You are mine. You are mine. And… I love you. I love you.”

Death is an option. This type of death brings life.

I cannot say that it will be any easier knowing this, but I am not alone. I am willing to surrender the self built castles that have protected me. I am willing to walk into this new season knowing that life is on the other side.

You (reader and friend) are on the other side. We are on the other side.

Deeper capacity to love and be loved. What good news…