Even When It's Not

Every year I struggle with the sinking feeling of leaving the spiritual high of a week of camp. This year, this year God showed me something amazing, towards the end of the week, in the words of a song. As we sang “Blessed Be Your Name,” a song I've heard more times than I can count, I was struck by the dichotemy of the words which challenged me to bless the name of God when the world was all as it should be...but then too, even when it’s not. The words, at the moment, had burned so sharp and true. Cut so deep, I knew I had to focus on them. And I did. As the song played on, the words “Even when it’s not, even when it’s not...” played through my ears, through my mind, through my heart.

It took me another day pondering over the strangeness of the intensity of the words to come to a realization about the rightness of my world at camp in contrast to the “outside world”. I came home with the weight and sadness of departure still very real but by Sunday a written understanding, a call, a challenge from God, nearly audible stating “You blessed my name when the world was as it should be and now that it’s not – bless me anyway!” It cut me to the core. And the response felt so very right.

Ironically? It was the exact next morning that my world would again crash in against me. My doctor would call and tell me it was time to try and do everything over again – that my world was again not as it should be. I bottled the frustration and tried to pretend that it didn’t bother me – all the while feeling like I was being punched over and over again in the gut. Really rather upset with the God who would allow this to go on...again. For the last month, I’ve been in varying stages of disconnect. Sometimes God and I are fine. I give Him my will and control. But often it seems, we reach an impasse and I won’t talk to Him for a while as I seek to understand the underlying resentment I harbor.

Until it occurred to me this week... “Even when it’s not” had nothing to do with camp. It was a great piece to understand, a fantastic application, but “even when it’s not” was preparing me for another upheaval on my life. Another chance to praise God during my roads marked with suffering and painful offerings. It was God’s challenge to me – a day, two days early! “Anika! You blessed my name when the world was as it should be. And now that it’s not...bless me anyway!”

My world isn’t quite right. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t flow right. So many pieces of it are off and cancer is just one huge heaping helping of all that is wrong. I’m frustrated...with life in general. With being back at school. With being back at school and the “cancer kid” for yet another semester. With being back at school, the cancer kid, and a relative loner. With being such a loser I had to go in blind for a roommate as a junior...and am stuck with a roommate that is far from my perfect match. I’m frustrated that the environment which always forced me to come alive seems to be slowly choking the life out of me. The place which always, beyond a shadow of a doubt, forced me to see the face of Christ...has left me searching for when He intends to show up. Yeah, frustrated. But I’ve been given a choice – a choice and a challenge. A decision and a dare. Praise isn’t a natural response; in fact it’s unnatural response. It’s a sacrifice, a choice, an act of obedience and, ultimately, the only way. I don’t want to praise God now...but He calls me to anyway. “Anika you bless my name when your world is ‘right’. Bless me now too...Even when it’s not.”