I'm Finally Getting It

I got the neatest message from a sister that follows my blog and I wanted to respond with another blog as well as a personal message back to her. She thanked me for sharing my walk and my faith.

Here I sit with staph infection that turned into blood poisoning and 3 boils from the staph infection, nauseous from the medicines, getting to the point where I am dreading the next medicine because I know how I am going to feel right afterwards. I have no money - maybe ten dollars to my name because moving wiped me out this month. My husband left to live in Mexico to find himself last Saturday telling my daughter he would only send child support if "she" called him two times a week. Oh, and mind you, this is after my daughter and I lived for one year in the midst of his abuse while I loved him like Jesus would have me to in the hopes of restoring my marriage.

Yes - if I kept looking at those things, I would feel so crummy, I would quit. No, I am choosing to focus on what God has done, not what he has not done. I am kind of thinking that God has allowed me this time as an opportunity to make up for what I failed to do when my life fell apart before.

I was serving God. Was wealthy with a great job, a great family - owned a beautiful home and my husband had an affair at the same time as my one and only best friend of 25 years died of a heart attack. I know to praise God in the storm and was doing so for about 3 months, but I was dying inside and didn't feel like God was hearing my prayers. I quit on God and told him just that. I wanted to die and believe that suicide is a sin (funny why would I care if I had turned my back on God) and if I'm dead I can't ask forgiveness for taking a life so I thought maybe by picking up a whole new drug I could "accidentally" overdose. 18 or so years prior to that time, I had been a drug addict, so with that history, I just got addicted all over again to this new drug that really messed my life up. I should have stood and served God and one of my only regrets in this life is that I didn't "pull a Job" during that time. Well, God is giving me another chance to do just that.

I want to be a living testimony that no matter what this life throws at me this time, I am going to stand on the promises of God. That is just about my favorite praise song in the world. Today I watched a great sermon and the message in a nutshell was "Quit Whining and Start Shining". I am hoping that I am beyond the whining part and don't fall victim to fear or sadness or despair because I've got this great big light of mine that I truly want to let shine. After all God, I'm finally getting it now. Besides, Romans 8:31 - If God is with me, who can be against me? He promised to never leave us. Thank you Father, and because you never change, I trust that.

Today join me in prayer that we can all pull a Job if necessary and that we can be living testimonies to God's hand in our lives when we all make it through. Pray that we all shine and force ourselves to put away the whine.

Hallelujah!