Drawn into the Den

First of all I just want to say that my heart has been completely overwhelmed by the love that all of you have shown to me.  Seriously, the support and love and pledges of prayer have been UHmazing and I am just so incredibly thankful for each one of you.  I have never before seen such a tangible outpouring of the love of the body of Christ as I have in the last week.  Thank you!!!

The last few days have had their ups and downs, as I'm sure they have for each of you.  It really doesn't matter what it is we are going through exactly, we all seem to come to the same place of need for our sweet Savior.  So I want to share with you a bit about my few days and what the Lord showed me just in case it might also be a word for some of you too.  

Wednesday I posted in the morning about some stuff going on around here that I had been putting off posting.  A couple of hours later, I received a call from my surgeons nurse saying that they were going to have to cancel my CT scan of my pulmonary  artery because the insurance company had denied the need for it.  Basically they say that I've had enough tests to prove I need the surgery and this isn't necessary. However, this is the only test that will show exactly WHERE my surgeon will need to cut.  That's kinda important don't ya think?  The pulmonary artery is basically like a "T" and the blockage could be anywhere along that and my surgeon says there's no way that he will operate without that test.

(The lavender one is the pulmonary artery.  I like pictures)

My nurse, Robyn, is the bomb and went to bat for me with the insurance company and got them to agree to send it to another insurance doctor for review and she says she is hopeful that they will approve it by Monday or Tuesday and then they will try to sneak the test in Wednesday of Thursday before my appointment with my surgeon on Friday. So there IS a chance that this hiccup won't affect anything as far as the timing of the actual surgery.  Please pray for that okay?  Robyn said that this is a money game for the insurance company.  They know I need the test but they are putting it off as long as they can because of the end of the year or something.

Quite honestly, here's some real Jo: I was super upset.  I was all tripping out because I mean how can they do that!?  How can they put off a needed test just because of money!?!

Later that day, I had some people in my life treat me very strangely considering the circumstances and it threw me, too.  Like hey, really? Right now? Shouldn't you be like uber nice?

Nothing got worked out that day.  I can't even say that I was floating down a stream of easy flowing grace.  There's a song by Rend that goes "I wanna float with You, the currents driving me, but I'll paddle hard too....I've counted up the cost and You are worth it."  Wednesday felt like a paddle upstream day. 

But Wednesday was also one of the sweetest days ever.  While singing a song about the faithfulness of God in my living room with our church family, my sweet friend's water broke and she went into labor.  Five hours later, a perfect little beauty was born.  What a beautiful thanksgiving gift to all of us!

Wednesday night, after sending my friend off to the hospital, I sat around talking with some close friends about the difficulties of the day and shared with them the struggle in my heart.  These couple of teensy difficulties seemed to be hanging on to me and I couldn't seem to shake them. But it was so obvious as we discussed everything that the choice was before me: 

choose to focus on the couple of difficulties 

OR 

choose to focus on the inpouring of love from all of my sweet friends through messages and emails and texts and focus on the beautiful new life that was about to be born in time for me to be able to hold her! (If she had been born in two weeks like she was supposed to I would not have been  able to hold her...Jesus is so sweet).  To be honest, I made the right choice. But it was apart from the warm fuzzy feelings.  And I felt like I was making the choice about every two minutes.  I'm lame I know. 

But Jesus was so sweet to me as I read Daniel 6 the next morning.  I've always loved the story of Daniel and the lions den, but it hit me differently this time (dontcha love how His word can do that?).  As I was reading this time, it was crazy cool to me how Daniel kept doing the things that he knew he had been called to do and he got in trouble for it but the Lord took care of his details!  He showed up and was Daniels deliverer.  And the deliverance was complete.  The mouths of the lions were shut by that angel.  

And The Lord just said to my heart, I am going to do that for you too.  No lion will touch you to harm you.  I will deliver you.

But something crazy stood out to me this time.  Daniel was assured of deliverance, he even had the king on his side and waiting up for him and fasting!  

But he had to GO into the den of lions.  

He had to let the door be sealed behind him.  

And he had to go ALONE.

What a crazy thought right?  We are assured of deliverance but so often we want that to mean we don't have to walk through the trial.  Isaiah gives us the beautiful imagery of walking through the fire and not being burned, of walking through the floods but not being overtaken by them.  Maybe I'm the only crazy one, but I think in my mind I get excited about the deliverance promised and forget about the fact that He never said I wouldn't have to walk THROUGH it.  But like here with Daniel, although he WILL be delivered, he WILL be given a greater revelation of the character and power of God, he WILL walk through and be okay, he still has to walk in and allow himself to be shut in.  Alone.  I feel a little like that right now.  I have ToNS of support and I am so so thankful for that. Seriously, each message or call or text means that world to me.  But I have to walk into that operating room alone.  

But, like Daniel, I am NOT alone.  My God is walking beside me, wooing me, drawing me into deeper fellowship.  Like a pair of lovers left alone to stare deeply into each other's heart's, it does not matter what the surroundings are.  The face and heart before them is enough to drown out everything else.  The den of lions can become my rendezvous point with the lover of my soul!  

And I am not in a den full of lions, but I am facing more snarling "teeth" than I ever have before.  Not that I mean to complain.  I truly do recognize that this isn't the biggest deal in the world.  Like I said in my last post, I DONT have cancer.  I DONT have something terminal.  But each thing we face is OUR thing that we face and it is meant to draw us into a place where we can gaze into the face of one that loves us so much He died for us.  God doesn't belittle our circumstances, He just wants us to hand them to Him regardless of the size. What are you facing today?  A broken family? A broken heart. A broken fellowship with an adoring Savior who is ready to welcome you in? Apathy at work? In your personal relationships? Whatever it is, big or small, your "deal" can be your lions den, the place where you are drawn away from all you know and instead of being trampled or devoured you can find yourself wrapped in the embrace of the God of the universe.

I guess Jesus is teaching me to stop being so afraid of the lions and the closed in den, to learn anticipate the nearness of the God of the impossible, to let go of what I understand and instead rest in Him.  Any body else feeling that?