Betrayed!

While I won’t reveal my exact age, my white hair certainly provides indicators that I am no longer young.  Some would even say that I am so far over the hill that they can’t even see me anymore.  While others might say that I have many good years left in me.

Regardless, I am feeling the aches and pains of an aging body.  I am finding that my stamina and energy have significantly decreased.  In addition, I don’t have the strength to do some of the things I once did.  And, if I ever get sick or suffer an injury, the recovery time seems to take so much longer than in the past.

While my body testifies to the truths of 2 Cor 4:16 “Though our outer self is wasting away”, I don’t know that I always enter into or appreciate the phrases that surround the reality of what that verse points to.  The phrase that follows those words is “our inner self is being renewed day by day.”  The phrase that precedes those words is “So we do not lose heart.”  So in many ways, I do wish that I would not lose heart as I try to grasp that there are good things going on.  That is, as my outer self is wasting away, my inner self is being renewed.

But sometimes the aches and pains overshadow that great hope.  And the tiredness and weariness that come, both during the day and at the end of it, tend to make it difficult to appreciate that hope.

In the midst of all that, another passage in Exodus 17 has been on my mind a lot lately.  The passage has to do with Moses and a battle and help from Aaron and Hur: 

Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.  So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.  But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.  And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.  (v 8-13)

I won’t even try to suggest that I am a Moses and that I am engaged in a battle of that nature, but I will say that my hands do seem to grow weary at times.  And when others step in and provide support, things then tend to go in the right direction.  And while I sometimes wish I didn’t have to rely on the support and help of others, especially in those areas that I once had strength of my own, it is a reality of this season of life for me. 

So, I am working on acknowledging that there are times when I do need help and I even need to ask for it.  And when the help does come, I do need to remember that it would be wise for me to stop resenting that I need help but I should be grateful for it and for the people who provide it.