Tunnel Not Tomb.

Beth Moore called it her "Season of Defeat."  This season when struggle seems more common than smiling, and striving never ceases to sabbath.  So much of my courage is swallowed up or suffocating, and living is squandered by surviving.  

For me, this Season of Defeat is overrun and overruled by medical appointments and disruptions.  Somedays, I honestly just can't make one more medical phone call or specialist visit or physical therapy appointment or ear check haul.  I have lists of medical analysis and prescriptions to try or surgery details.  Its like an ongoing cavern, deeper and deeper into a mountain of dark, questions or visits just guiding downward to more phone calls and more physicians.  The ceaseless medical need for Judah and me has whacked and confused and used so much time and energy that the whirlwind and debris is dehabilitating.  And has turned me crazy and angry, and defeated.

This season is saying No.  No. No. No.  No to almost everything, to say yes to something, but the No's bring so much hardship too.  No to Community Group, which in essence sometimes feels like No to belonging or friends or prayer buddies.  No to Women's teaching/study, which means No to using my gifts and callings and refreshment.  No to coffee with friends, no to complete sentences of conversation, no deeper friendship.  No to more preschool, no to the YMCA, no to fitting in.  No to space for breathing, listening, thinking.  There are "yes's", of course, like to home at night and being available for these little people, but it is mostly a time of lots of hard No.

So much is dusted by defeat.  Dinners are haphazard.  A desire for a schedule far from the dream.  And toys and dirty dishes overwhelm me.

I woke this morning with the day already overwhelming me with defeat.  Maria Goff calls it the opening of the Stock Market, when the kids start swarming and squealing for their needs of the day.  And its just how I feel. I know all my "thank-you's" and "blessings" and list after list of good things,  but somehow often all the chaos clouds my perspective and I feel instead, all of life frustrating and endless, with constant yanking on my time or energy or words or limbs.  

It makes me frazzled and frantic and soul depleted and dead, this Season of Defeat.  But as I rumpled out of bed in the darkness towards the little people, God spoke to me in the darkness about the difference between a tunnel and a tomb.

A tunnel is dark for a season, damp and yucky and miry.   So much pushing and stumbling and sadness and saying "No" can make it feel even longer or more lonely and more confined...

But a tomb is all those things, but with defeat stamped forever.  All the despair, all the doubt, all the dark.  Done.  

Yet a tunnel has hope and grace and mercy pouring somewhere on the other end.  Even if I cannot see it.  Even if the days loom so long and lonely and frustrating and exhausting ahead.  A tunnel has an end.  Has light.  Has life.

Dear Jesus, you speak to me through this hope, through offering life and light, and through holding my hand and calling me still, because this season of defeat is a tunnel, not a tomb.