We Fall Down, But We Get Up

This particular blog is a compilation of what the Lord has been doing with me the past couple of weeks.
He has been faithful to send illustrations across my path to make it clearer.
I understand that there are possible spiritual roots of over 80% of all disease.
I understand that disease has no legal right to me unless I open the door through sin.
As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come. Prov. 26:2
So when I became ill, I knew what needed to be dealt with and that there probably another layer or two that would be revealed as well.
So the journey began. The first block to healing is unforgiveness. More often than not, that is directed towards me. I don't give myself a lot of grace.
This week I listened to Mary Pat's CD, Biblical Insights to Food and Related Issues.
In it she says, Pastor Henry teaches that we are neither black nor white, but pilgrims in progress moving from black to white. So we are all in vary shades of gray. Then
she nailed me with the following, "We hate the gray. We hate where we are. We say, 'I don’t like where I am. I should be thinner or healthier or stronger or different.
I don’t like this gray. I want to be more white. So I am going to try to get more white. I am going to try to get more white.'
"How many of us have tried to get more white? It is ugly. It is not pure. It’s not white.We are all a shade of gray. And if we hate it, if you hate what you are doing, where you are and who you are, that is a door point for accusation for self-hatred and for drivenness and performance to get you whiter.
So the moral of the story is love the gray and trust God. That if your heart is open to Him, He will change you. You don’t have to do a thing. God will change you. When we try to do it ourselves, it gets ugly.
So be content in your gray where you are. Love yourself where you are."
"Love yourself where you are."
I chewed on that for three days. I knew I didn't love myself where I am. As I said, I am hard on myself. No matter what I do, I should do more. That is drivenness and performance and certainly makes no provision for resting in God (Heb.3) or fully trusting Him.
In the midst of that I got a devotional that included the following story: "One of the common soldiers was driving a mule that carried some of Alexander the Great's treasure. The mule was too exhausted to go on, so the soldier put the load on his own shoulders. Alexander saw the man staggering along, and he asked what was the matter. The soldier told him that the mule was too tired to carry the load, and that he was about at the end of his endurance too. "Don't give up now," said Alexander, "but carry what you have there to the end of the journey, then take it to your own tent, to keep for yourself."
I thought that is me. I am staggering under this, but all along God intends it to be a gift to me. I can look at the pain in the journey or His strength for the journey to bring me to His expected end. I choose not to give up.
[It is of] the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. [They are] new every morning: great [is] thy faithfulness. The LORD [is] my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD [is] good unto them that wait for him, to the soul [that] seeketh him. [It is] good that [a man] should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. Lam.3:22-26