The Foundation
Life is a pretty full on experience. I don't know about you but there are times I try and imagine the future. Then, BAAM! My mum is diagnosed with cancer (end of 2004). That wasn't in any of my imagined futures. There's an identity adjustment. Mum becomes mother, wife, sister and cancer patient. I become a support person for someone with cancer. There's a job adjustment there. I put aside my work to keep her business operating.
Mum is just beginning to recover from the treatment. Then, WALLOP! My arm goes haywire (end of 2005). Through overuse my arm sustains an injury which develops into a chronic pain condition. The injury clears up, but I still experience nagging, persistent pain when I use my arm. The other arm becomes affected. Driving, writing, using the keyboard or mouse, playing sport, art, texting on the phone, even using the TV remote all become either limited or completely out of bounds for me because they aggravate my arm. In literally one day I go from being an able-bodied person to having a disability. There's a huge identity shift!
I can't build a living around the work I once did. The most positive direction seems to be to re-train into an area where my physical limitations won't prevent me from working. So I return to being a student and take a new career direction. The main context for my life outside of home becomes school. I build friendships. These friends become precious to me. Then, BIFF! SPLAT! Relationships fall apart (end of 2007). One of those relationships involves a lecturer and a lack of respect for my boundaries. Because of his lack of integrity in our relationship I also lose my best friend. BOOM! Trust in the school environment disappears (beginning of 2008).
And, THUMP! Finances stretch to breaking. My weekly income won't cover my basic weekly expenses.
I feel like I've gone 12 rounds with Mohammed Ali, except this has been going on for years. I feel like huge parts of myself are just rubble. I'm starting to experience depression in response. The question I have to ask myself is, how come it's taken so long to become depressed?! Despite all that's happened, despite the depression, I'm still moving forward. Where is that strength coming from?
Underneath it all, underneath the rubble and the pain is a foundation of hope which keeps bubbling up. My foundation is Christ.
Thousands of years before Christ Job said,
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
Job 19:25-27