December 13, 2007
The music that is on the homepage of all of my updates was chosen for a reason. The song, "My Desire" really emphasizes just that... what the desires of my heart are. I long for everything that he sings about in that song. I am not a perfect person. I never have been, nor have I ever claimed to be. I am at a place in my life where I can truly and honestly say that more than anything I have ever wanted, I want to be used by my Savior and be set free through Him. I was not called only in my sickness, but I was called long before that. God does not wait until we are suffering some sort of affliction before He extends His hand out asking us to serve Him. I think that because we are human, and we seem to be so busy with life and everything it means to us on daily basis that we sometimes don't hear Him until we are under attack. This is so sad for me to think about now, because if I had only known how to call on Him 10 years ago like I do now, I think I would have made some very different decisions in my life. I know how much God has blessed my life, even in my own stubbornness and unfaithfulness, but I know how much more He has blessed me personally in my obedience. When I heard the song "My Desire" today, the line that says "I know my life is to do Your will! It's to do Your will!" I thought about what that means. What is God's will? Upon creation, I believe that God's intentions for us and this world were not for us to be afflicted. Sin and affliction are results from the fall of man and our own disobedience in the Garden of Eden. We all know that when someone says, "You can touch anything in this whole room that you want, except this one thing... that is special and no one can touch it." our focus does not go to everything we can have, but that one thing we cannot. My niece, Emily, is almost a year old. She knows that she is not allowed to touch their Christmas tree. That restriction is not there to deprive her of fun, but it is for her own safety. Every once in awhile, you will see her crawl up to it, and reach her little hand up to it, lightly brushing past an ornament or the tree needles, then look away and shake her head "no". Even in someone so little, she understands that she is not supposed to touch that tree, but the curiosity is still in her. Because sin was born into the world, sickness and sadness have been allowed to creep in as well. None of us were born perfect, so therefore we were all born with some kind of disability or limitation. God can use any single one of our disabilities or imperfections, no matter how severe they might seem, as long as we allow Him to. That sounds like an easy thing, but it all comes down to God's will. Not our own. That is when it gets harder. Society as a whole does not possess much patience, and we do not like to not understand things. We look for quick fixes and we can access any knowledge we want at the click of our mouse and the speed of our internet. Cancer is the current affliction I am dealing with, but it not the only struggle I have ever faced in my life. And as I said earlier, God did not extend His call to me because I am sick. His call came before I was even born. It reaches every single one of us, no matter what situation we are in. Whether we are blessed and happy, or feel overlooked and are hurting, we have each been called. I have chosen to let Him work in my situation. I have to pray everyday for His will to be done. In my own eyes, and in my timing, the struggles my family has had to endure would have ended long before now. That is the area that I have to surrender more than once every day. I prayed today for God to give me a little more insight on His will in the Bible, so I could see examples of how people surrendered that area in their own lives. Very early on in the Bible, in Genesis, is the story of Abram and his wife, Sarai (God eventually changed their names to Abraham and Sarah). Sarai was unable to have children, and when Abram was about 75 years old, God spoke to him and told him that Sarai would have a son. They waited and waited. The more they waited, the less hopeful they were that God's promise would be fulfilled. Sarai tried to take matters into her own hands, arranging a surrogate of sorts, and a son was born to Abram through another wife. Everything seemed to fall apart after that, and it was because it was not God's plan, but it was their plan. God continued to tell them that Sarai would still in fact have a son, and Sarai laughed at the thought. Genesis 18:14a says "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" Sure enough though, when Abraham was 100 years old, Sarah bore him a son, Isaac. They had to wait more than 25 years for everything to fall into place and for God's will to be fulfilled, but it was in fact fulfilled.
I was told in September that I will never be cured of this disease. I have also been told that I will never have my own biological children. I will never carry a baby. Those are some pretty significant "nevers". But is anything too hard for the Lord?
Jesus prayed in the garden regarding his own death. Matthew 26:39 ..." My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
A little later, He prays again. Matthew 26:42 He went away a second time and prayed, " My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."
My job is not to figure out why I got sick. I don't want to be an advocate for cancer. I do, however, want to be an advocate for faith and surrender. My job is to surrender myself daily. If I try to fix this on my own, I will mess it up. I have prayed many times as Jesus prayed in the garden. If possible, I would love for this cup to be taken from me. But that is not up to me. I may have to go through this for a long time, but I will never stop believing that when the doctors say "never" God is the one who says "Is anything too hard for Me?"