Is Imago Dei Enough?

I think I finally realized something...

Over the past several months, I've been pondering and complaining about the fact that I'm reaching my limits.  I feel like I'm being stretched, and broken down, and utterly swallowed by all of the shit flying my way.

For the longest time, it was mostly just my legs that were perpetually plagued by unsufferable bouts of nerve pain.  And I knew that God was stretching and testing my long-standing fear of paralysis.  He was definitely also testing my endurance and my overall faith, but a large part of it has just been Him asking me if I'm truly willing to give up my physical mobility for Him.  And, as painful on so many levels as it has been, I have kept saying to Him, "Here I am. Send me."  That and telling Him that I'm "All in."

As scary as all of that has been, I'm currently dealing with something that terrifies me far more than the loss of my functioning legs.  I am writer.  It's how I process the world around me and everything that I'm struggling with (hence, this blog).  Furthermore, I'm an academic.  I'm just finishing my last week of classes for my first semester of law school, and I start finals in a week and a half.  I have three 4+ hour long type-written exams.  Because I've missed so much school due to medical issues, I have a ton of reading, notes, and outlining to do to get ready for these finals.

And it's all I can do to type a half-hour worth of notes during a review session.  Taking notes on or highlighting my reading is out of the question.  I can only work on my outlines, on paper or my laptop, for maybe a half hour at a time.

I've been working on this one goddamn blog post off an on for days now.  Not because of writer's block or anything like that, but simply because typing for any length of time is excruciatingly painful.

Every flinch of every joint and muscle throughout both of my hands aches and screams in pain.  Just touching an elevator button shoots daggers up my arm.  Driving, my only real escape other than writing, is painful, and I'm getting to the point where I'm questioning the safety of me being behind the wheel when it kills to grip the steering wheel.

My entire fucking life is resting on my successful completion of this semester.  It's not like I can just delay my exams.  The day after my final exam, I go into the hospital to start the month long process to take care of these ridiculous medical issues relatively permanently (in theory).

So I just have to get through.  If I don't, how can I pursue my passion, chase my calling, and fulfill my life's mission to help bring justice and compassion to survivors of sex crimes?

Without the simple use of my hands, it could all fall apart.

And as much as I'm trying to trust and have faith and believe that it will all work out, that somehow God will pull me through this, my mind still races through the possibilities...the what ifs.

So I've been asking myself, who am I without my passion and goals?  Why would I want to remain here, on this horribly painful earth, if I literally and physically can't fight back.  If I can't stay in this fight, if I can't pursue my passion for justice, for compassion, what then?  What use am I to this world?  And, far more painful a question, who am I without this fight?

I know that, no matter what, I am imago Dei.  I am made in the very image of God, and there is no doubt intrinsic value in that fact.  But my imago Dei, the way Christ lives out through me, is in this fight!  My raison d'etre, my reason for being, my very identity rests entirely in my passion, in my life's goals, in the fight that has already consumed my heart and mind and will consume my very life.

Or is it?  Is there more to me, my identity, my imago Dei than this fight?

Is the simple intrinsic value of me, as a human, enough of a reason to keep me from giving in to the desires inside of me, perpetually bubbling just under the surface, to end my life?

In the very first post on this blog, one of the questions that served as a catalyst for these musings of mine was the idea from my philosophy class that it is morally justifiable for a person with no capacity to act in furtherance of their own life and desires to take that life (the context here was a person in a vegetative coma, or a situation similar to Million Dollar Baby).  I mused at the time that, because my value comes not from myself but from my desire to live for Christ, I would never want anyone to pull the plug on me.  I am still imago Dei and my God can and does perform miracles.

I still logically believe that same thing.  But it's a very different question when facing the possibility of total loss of functionality in all of your limbs.  When your life's work and desires, your mission from God himself rests on a certain degree of manual mobility.  Then that question of the value of life and when it is understandable to end it becomes so much more complex and painful.

On a small scale, I've realized that, even without the mobility needed to pursue all of these things, I am still loyal and compassionate.  And people need me.  And I need them.  And, for now at least, that's keeping me going.  That and the tiny scrap of faith and idea of hope that I'm still desperately clinging to.

I long to get back the conviction, drive, and utter courage in these words: "I'm standing on the mouth of hell and it's gonna swallow me whole.  And it'll choke on me."