Part 4 – What’s Happening In my Spirit

In my Spirit

“Hang on a second, something is happening.” Obviously what the doctor was talking about was actually seeing my stroke happen. There was no way for him to see what was doing in my spirit in the days after my stroke. It is even hard for me to see what is going on in my spirit. But something was going on.

I was in the hospital for one week, and I went to church the week after that. I didn’t think that I would be able to understand what was going on, but I felt I needed to be there.  And I was right. I couldn’t really understand the words of the songs. I could not follow the sermon. But I had an experience during the worship service. The peace of God was so strong. It was like I was floating on air, soft and warm. It lasted for maybe 10 minutes. And it was unbelievable. I felt like I caught a glimpse of what heaven was like. And I knew everything was going to be okay. I didn’t know if I would be okay, but I knew that everything would be okay. If I was healed, if I had another stroke, if I got better, if I got worse. It just didn’t matter. There was so much peace.

It was a gift from God, I’m thankful for it. During the months following that time, there have been good days and bad days, during the bad days I knew that everything was going to be okay. 

I want to tell you a story about what happened to me after the stroke. This happened about a month after the stroke as I was sitting on my porch drinking coffee and thinking about life. At this point in my recovery I wasn’t really able to read and couldn’t really talk very well either. But I could think about things. And that was what I was doing, thinking about things, and praying about things, and meditating about things, it’s kind of a stream of consciousness type of thing. It was what I was doing that particular day.

God Speaks

There are two chairs on the porch, there is one chair that I always sit on, and the other chair. That morning I was thinking about that other chair on my porch. I was thinking it would be great if Jesus could be there in that chair to help me out.  As I was thinking that in my head, I heard a voice. I am not sure if it was an audible voice, but it was loud and clear in my head, and it was coming from the chair. It was one word, “come”. I was startled. But I knew what it meant, God was asking me to come to him, and I knew what I had to do. I had to respond. So I stood up, and I walked across to the other chair and I sat down.   

As soon as I sat down the first thing that came to my mind was, am I sitting in God’s lap?  And I felt a little bit foolish about that. Nothing seemed to change, I was sitting in there with my coffee. I was just sitting in a different chair. It was nothing like the experience that I had in church. I was just sitting in a different chair. I was thinking to myself what happens next, what’s going on, it was like nothing happened. But something did happen. Something profound. 

The next day when I came to the porch with my coffee, I sat in the other chair. The day after that, I did the same thing. And the day after that. I just stayed. I sat there in the same place every morning. At this point I wasn’t reading anything and I decided I needed to start doing that.  I found a devotional book. I don’t know how it came to be on my desk, but somehow it was laying there. And it looked like it would be easy to read, so I decided I would start it. 

The introduction says it is written as if Jesus is speaking to you personally. OK, I get it, instead of  “Jesus loves me”, Jesus is saying “I love you”.  Sounds like a gimmick, but OK. So I sit down on my porch with my coffee and this book,  and begin to read. “Taste and see that I am good. The more intimately you experience me, the more convinced you become of my goodness.  I am the living one who sees you and longs to participate in your life.”  Wow, whether it’s a gimmick or not, wow. Those words were so powerful,  I am the one who sees you, and I long to participate in your life. On day two, “Let my Love enfold you….Sit still in the light of My presence and receive My peace. These quiet moments with Me transcend time, accomplishing far more than you can imagine.” That’s what I like to do in the morning, I like the quiet, I like the stillness. He wants me to sit still there and experience his love and peace. I realize that I’m not able to convey what was happening in the heart. It was so powerful to hear those words while sitting on God’s lap.  I was hooked. The next 40 days I read this devotional. 

And then I started reading my Bible. One chapter a day. It was brutally slow and hard work, but it was also beautiful. And over those several months I started to realize how much God loved me. I felt the love of God. I mean I really felt the love of God. There is a prayer in the Bible that I never thought about. I never really realized it was a prayer. It is in Ephesians 3.18, Paul is praying that you “may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”.

It is a prayer for power, not for overthrowing your enemies, or beating your temptations, but about grasping how much God loves us. Power. There is power in knowing how much God loves you. And somehow I was able to grasp it, sitting there on that chair and listening to his words. Yeah, something happened, something profound, something powerful. That happened because of my stroke. A silver lining to what happened. Or maybe it was more than that, maybe it was a cloud of solid gold. 

Something else was going on while all this was happening. I don’t know if it happened all at once or gradually, but the realization of what happened dawned on me gradually. I gave up. 

There what a surrender.  Day 3 of the devotional began with this, “Follow me one step at a time, that in all I require of you”  a couple days later was this, “Trust Me by relinquishing control into My hands. Let go, and recognize that I’m God.” And it was what I was doing, letting go of the steering wheel. Following one step at a time. This dawned on me gradually, as I noticed something different. Something was gone. Something that I didn’t even know that I had. This struggle I had with God. There was a resistance that I had against what God wanted me to do.  Usually I would comply, in fact almost all the time I would go along, sometimes grudgingly.  But there was always some resistance.  And now it is gone. I didn’t realize what it was until it was gone. I surrendered. And I felt free. 

My New Routine  

Because of that encounter I have a new routine. My porch experience became an everyday experience. I start every day on my porch. I call it, meeting the day.  There I think good thoughts, I read my bible, I pray, I reset, I resit. (Is that even a word) I resit on God’s lap. This is my foundation, It grounds my day, sometimes it lasts until night. Often it fades, the weariness of neurofatigue, always thinking about words, the slowness of my rebuilding journey. Geez, it’s only noon, I’m ready for bed. But I realize tomorrow morning is coming. More than that, I actually long for the start of a new day. I am looking forward to the time where I will meet the day, sitting on my porch.

What happened that morning when I heard God speak changed my life for the good. 

How you Respond is more Important Than What Actually Happened?  

When I had just started my blog I was talking to my friend Perry about some of the comments that were coming in. People say I am encouraging. How am I encouraging? I am not trying to encourage anyone. Perry replied, “I think people are encouraged about how you are responding to what has happened.” I never thought about it in those ways. I’m wondering if how you respond to what happened is maybe more important than what actually happened?  Hmm, maybe, I wouldn’t want to discredit what happened to me. It was traumatic, it was an important event. But I’m sure of this, my stroke happened without my input. There was nothing I could do about it, but how I respond is based on my choice, it is in my wheelhouse.

How did I respond to my stroke?  I chose, gratitude over anger, working on it over just sitting, hope over discouragement. And grieving what I’d lost led me to adapting rather than depression. Geez, choose? Wrong word. I didn’t choose anything when it actually happened. Not consciously anyways, it felt like I was just coping rather than choosing. Maybe I unconsciously chose, maybe those choices came from God, but somehow it happened, it left me in a good place. A good place to start.

Now, I’m working hard on staying there. Now, I’m choosing. Every day, even every hour, I’m trying to choose the good over the bad, I’m responding the best that I can to what happened, and is still happening. There is a lot of bad in the world, but there is so much good in the world, too. The same can be said about a stroke. Which side you choose makes all the difference. And I’m choosing the good. 

I Responded to the Invitation

Probably more important than how I responded to my stroke is how I responded to the one-word invitation on my porch. I said yes, I changed seats.

Jesus says come.

Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

That happened to me, while I was dealing with a stroke. What happened on the chairs on my porch had been an essential part of my recovery.

Chairs on the Porch

For that reason, I named my blog Chairs on the Porch.  And I decided to continue the blog after the blog year ended. I realized it was an important way to organize my thoughts about my new life and life in general. Along with that, people would see me and say thanks for your writing. Apparently, it meant something for them too.

Obviously, chairs on the porch is a metaphor, there is nothing magical about those chairs. There is nothing magical about my porch. But what a powerful metaphor it is for me.  Right in the middle of a whirlwind of a stroke, I heard his voice, I said, yes. And I switch seats to sit on God’s lap.

The front of my porch opens up to the world, to the opportunities, the tasks that God has for me. What a beautiful way to start a day. What a beautiful place to start from as I venture out into the world. What happened that morning when I heard God speak changed my life for the good. 

Isn’t life grand!