“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (I Corinthians 2:9).
Each fall my husband
takes some camping/hiking trips. A few
years ago as he was gathering all of his equipment in one room, he called it
his staging area. I had never heard that
term before and teased him about it. Now
when we plan to go somewhere, we joke about our staging area.
I recently looked up the definition of a staging area. It is “a place to gather in preparation on the way to a destination, or a temporary location to stay while awaiting transition to a new field of operations”. Two words impressed me – preparation and temporary – and I realized that my chronic pain and health problems are a staging area for my eternal life.
Every aspect of this earthly
life is preparing me for eternity. Pain
and suffering deepen my personal walk with and faith in God like nothing else
can, causing me to rely on Him alone and reminding me that this life is not all
there is.
Staging areas can be messy. Our family room loses its neat appearance during these preparation times and that can’t be helped. So it is with my earthly body and life. I want my life to be neat and organized, but pain and illness are messy. Life doesn’t go as planned, but this is only temporary. I am on the way to a “new field of operations” – my heavenly home. Right now God is preparing me for what lies ahead. There are things He wants to teach me and aspects of Himself that He wants to reveal to me in this staging area of pain.
In many ways I’m ready to
move on to my new location, but I pray that I can view this staging area as a
valuable tool God is using to prepare me for this glorious new destination, and
willingly live with mess until then.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, give me the perseverance and
faith to accept this staging area of pain and suffering that You are using for
my good, even as I keep my eyes fixed on my eternal destination with You, and
all that awaits me there. Amen.
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