The Desires of Our Hearts
God is in the middle of granting one of the desires of my heart,
I am in the middle of a recovering from a shoulder replacement…a surgically induced five-weeks-in-a-sling sabbatical.
One of the things that usually happens on a sabbatical is that normal income-producing work is suspended. I don’t have a nine to five job, so figuring out what to do on a sabbatical has been a challenge. I had no idea what my pain level was going to be, nor what my energy level was going to be. My recovery from surgery has been little short of miraculous, but I’m still restricted to a sling for three more weeks.
Sabbath is a hard sell for many 21st century Western Christians. God ordained Sabbath when He stopped creating and spent the day enjoying what he had made. Moses reports that God “rested and was restored” on the seventh day. How does the all-sufficient self-existent Eternal One get restoration? He cannot be depleted, but he did rest and received restoration, so this is our pattern for a day of rest.
He also commanded His people to give the fields a year off every seven, counting on God’s provision of the harvest from the sixth year to be enough to supply their needs until the harvest of the eighth year. (Talk about your test of faith!) It didn’t mean that no one worked for that year, but the work was not devoted to plowing, planting, and harvesting but other things. This is our model for a sabbatical. (Unfortunately the people of Israel never did give the land its Sabbath years, so God declared the land was getting its years of Sabbath — 70 of them — during their time of exile.)
I am a doer, and taking time off is a big challenge, but I am willing to learn. With the understanding that sabbatical is to be a time of restoration that requires faith, I am indulging a lifelong interest in herbal medicine. Yesterday I made a creosote salve to support the healing of wounds. Today as I was putting labels on the little amber glass jars, I had a stunning realization…
A little back story: When I was five years old, I felt God’s call on my life to go as a medical missionary. It continued strongly: I carried a homemade first aid kit on youth group outings as a teenager. That call drove my course studies in high school and college. Then I dreamt of being a medical doctor on a First Nations land, also learning from their healers the old ways of herbs.
(I never did become a doctor, except for Doctor Mom.)
But my heart’s desire to be knowledgeable and bring healing in whatever way I can has persisted (fueling even my recreational reading) and here I was making medicine from plants! God was granting my heart’s desire!
My heart overflows with praise for the God who said, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” So I’m going to keep
Following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
0 Comments