I just couldn’t face going to church… 
Did you ever feel that way? After the Saturday I had just experienced, that’s exactly how I felt. It was my following journal post that convinced me [or gave me the courage] to NOT go to church today.
Tuesday – This past Saturday I was uncomfortably aware of some character defects that troubled me. I had embarrassed myself , and don’t recall ever being quite so unloving. The total opposite of the Saint Francis prayer that I claim to love so much, which begins with the familiar:
“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love,
where there is injury, pardon…”
and then the last portion which begins:
“Oh, Divine Master,
Grant that I might not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved as to love…”
That was SO far from who I was on Saturday.
The meeting I attended, the conversation afterwards, the fellowship at the restaurant later, all seemed to be negative energy that had an effect upon me – which I can only attribute to my own spiritual condition.
I was acutely aware of my self-centeredness and painfully aware that I really only have a daily reprieve from my self-centeredness, contingent upon the maintenance of my spiritual condition.
So, how do I maintain my spiritual condition? Well, obviously, I hadn’t been doing that. So, what hadn’t I been doing?
I hadn’t been taking the time needed each day for prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, asking for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out.
Add to that, I hadn’t been getting the rest I needed and was trying to pack too much into any given day, which is a necessary discipline to manage FM. The consequences became obvious.
The ramifications of Fibromyalgia often mask my own spiritual decline and make it all the more evident that we can’t separate or un-entangle our bodies, souls, and spirits… Each affects the other.
Sunday I just couldn’t face going to church – on so many different levels – physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Having the usual breakfast before service with everyone wouldn’t have been ‘fellowship’ but more like a burdensome social responsibility, and
sitting still for a whole hour thru the service, no matter how inspirational it may have been would’ve been unbearable in my sorry state!
It’s difficult to choose NOT to go to church when that’s been such an important part of your life and subject to major guilt-tripping myself. When I finally called my friends to cancel a ride with them, I felt an immediate release – peace just flowed through me.
So, instead of using all my energy that morning getting ready to go (and with all that negative ‘not-wanting-to-go’ internalized, now dissipated) I stayed in my jammies, took a cup of coffee outside, and enjoyed the birds and the cats and just being outside. It felt so wonderful – –
As I was tempted (as I often am) to beat myself up for my failings the day before, as well as not having been faithful in my prayer and meditation, I recalled my dear friend asking, “So, Milz, you haven’t risen above the human condition yet?”. So, I relaxed and just ‘BE’d.
A Human Being, outside. A human, being Outside. A human, BEING, outside.
“Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”
(Job 12:7-10)
I began to feel such Gratitude as I savored the beauty of my Evergladesesque back yard, the company of a couple of the rescued cats who joined me on the comfy sofa, the variety of birds at our feeders with their cacophony of songs, the sparrows showering in the waterfall while the goldfish swam lazily in the little pond.
It was in that time of Gratitude that I found myself being very aware of really being God’s dear child. I realized I had accepted and forgiven myself, accepted God’s love, unmerited by anything I had done. There were times I actually felt like I was wrapped in his arms.
Scripture says, “God Is Love” and I think I came closer to actually ‘feeling’ that rather than just ‘believing’ it and was more energized and at peace then I would have been at a spa for the day.
“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”