Trust

I used to trust the body. To sleep more or less, eat more or less, function more or less within a flexible range, but there was always an unconscious dependence on that. I wouldn’t expect to just not sleep for days. The normal function would kick in. The body knows to self-regulate in ways that I can’t control and never needed to.

Now all bets are off, as if the body has gone rogue, disconnected from that dependable self-regulation function.

It seems that way, especially through endless nights and days of physical sufferings that won’t resolve to the lowest expectations.

A bigger picture begins to open up. What is changing if not the pain is where my trust lies, what I’m depending on. There’s no more dependence on the body or the world to behave within certain expected limits.

Anything can seem to go rogue at any time, because my trust can no longer be in that self-correcting mechanism to work as expected on its own.

But my trust is being withdrawn from that worldly arena and shifting to God’s arena. It’s my body in God that I’m learning to trust. The world in God that this intense training ground is having me learn to trust.

The pain of a body not sleeping for days can be torturous. When the old trust is broken, panic moves in to fill the space. A heart rhythm gone rogue finds nowhere to rest but in the comforting rhythm of the Jesus prayer. Alongside panic the prayer becomes a kind of supportive presence.

That’s all I can say sometimes, as the bottom is falling out of my dependence on anything physical apart from God, and a new trust in God’s providence in all things is being formed.

Glory to God in all things.