In my old party days, when I heard the word “stout” I either thought of short and rump or one of my favorite things on the planet – Guinness. Of course that was after my semesters abroad in England, where my favorite pub bar-keep would put a clover leaf into the top of the foam.
After surviving the battlefield of chronic illness, stout has taken on a whole new meaning to me. It represents tough, grit strength – especially when the tank is on empty.
I was reading the other day in Psalm – “When I called you answered me, you made me bold and stouthearted.” (NIV)
So, what does “stouthearted” really mean here? I was puzzled, so I looked in a few other versions to get a better picture. In the New King James Version it says “And made me bold with strength in my soul.”
In The Message it says “The moment I called out, you stepped in; you made my life large with strength.”
That gave me such a better picture of stouthearted and I realized I was just that. The Lord stepped in when I called out and made my life “large with strength”. It was not my own strength that got me through the doctor appointments, the school activities and homework, the grocery shopping, laundry, birthday parties and cooking.
I look back on the worst 18 months of my fight with chronic Lyme and I have no earthly idea how I got anything accomplished. Did I really keep paying bills and cooking meals? Apparently, I did. I had an army of family and friends that helped hold me up, sure. But I still functioned somehow someway.
If you are in the middle of your bloody battlefield with chronic illness, call upon the Lord and He will step in and “make you bold with strenght in your soul” and “make your life large with strength”.
I pray you don’t look too far forward or too far back, but ask the Lord for the strength to sustain your functionality for this moment, this hour, this day. May you all be stouthearted.
Blessings and healing,
Janice Fairbairn
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