allow the Lord to use your weakness

"I am a stranger in the earth, hide not your commandments from me." Psalm 119:19

Psalm 119 is long. Very, very long. One hundred and seventy-six verses to be precise. This particular Psalm is separated by different letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the letters can have specific meanings for the verses that accompany them. 

Under the portion for Teth (the ninth letter of the alphabet that is a bit of a paradox because it has a dual meaning of both good and evil) there is a verse that speaks to my very spirit and soul.

Psalm 119:71 "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes."

I can see the duality in that verse. Most people wouldn't think it would be fantastic to be afflicted. 

Before COVID ate my brain, I was a "Jesus person." I knew the old Deanna had been buried and was a new creation. Everything about me had changed. I had been born again for six years and I was a spirit filled person who daily prayed for truth. 

And then I got sick and I forgot who I was, and I lost all emotional connections to anyone I ever knew.

I couldn't feel God or Jesus for over a year. I prayed that he would just throw me some scraps to hang on to just to make it through it all. And he never left me. He gave me so much more than mere scraps. 

Due to my brain affliction it is so easy for me to come to the Lord every morning and just say "Take my life, take my will and do with it whatever you created me to do." It is easy for me to hand over everything to him when the only things that exist to me are what I see directly in front of me at any moment. I trust him with everything because he created me and knows who I am, and I feel like so much has personally been stolen from me that often I don't know who I am.

Maybe this sounds like a terrible life, but it is not. I have been so blessed in my 'affliction.' It has been GREAT for me to be afflicted because otherwise I do not believe I would have this desire, passion and obsession to learn and follow the statutes of Yahuah, and even though I physically do not feel joy, every single piece of logic working in me knows that I would never want to go back. I would never want it to be any other way. I would not trade this relationship just to have the rest of my brain back. No way, no how. 

I was reading Psalm 119 this morning and crying, not because I was sad, in fact, I was asking God "What even is this feeling that I am crying about?" It was because I know I am only now understanding for the first time in my born again life what it really and truly means to try to keep God's statutes and precepts. To learn what makes him happy and to learn how to walk the way of the ancients. I would never be asking him to reveal these things to me if I had not been 'afflicted.' 

It really and truly brings to life, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9

Never in my ten year born again walk have I felt this close to our Creator. Never have I felt so drawn to wanting to understand how to walk like the ancients did and be close to him. Scripture is so true when it says the closer you draw to God, the closer he draws to you. And that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. My life, despite the great loses of everything I thought made me who I am, has never been so full. Even on the days where my brain does not work at all, I can rest in the fact that I know without a shadow of a doubt, that I am an heir of the greatest treasure there ever is. He made me. He knows me so much better than I know myself anyway.