So I had the chance to go see the Love Come to Life tour in Gastonia last night with a good friend of mine. I didn’t realize how much it was exactly what I needed. I have been going through my share of “stuff” lately as you all know by now and it was totally reenergizing to be reminded that my God loves me in spite of all of that.
I bought my first cd last night in ages. Like literally, I’m going to say it has been no less than four years since I picked up Relient K’s Four Score and VII Years CD at Kingdom Bound. Let me start off by saying that the Christian rock band Luminous is phenomenal (the two cd’s that I picked up). I can’t find them anywhere on google to even give you a clue so you will just have to take my word for it.
But anyway – a few truly amazing things happened for me last night, as I know they did for others as well. For starters, I have NOT been on fire with my faith and for the Lord lately. I have been hearing God a lot more than what is typical for me and out of fear and selfishness, I have basically been ignoring him… A couple of weeks ago, our worship pastor announced that he would be moving to Australia at the end of the year to do ministry. I just remember sitting there and the Lord saying to me “if you would just listen, I could use you for situations like this too.” As exciting as that was – I refused to let go and let God. That all changed last night. I am going to do my best to love this city in the ways that God has blessed me with the ability to do. The really awesome part about that? Is I really just get to continue to do what I’m doing, but instead of doing it for me – I will be doing it for Jesus. This 5k that I’m doing this weekend, the already amazing meetup group I just started – all of those can be used to glorify Jesus and I have almost been using everything I am doing in my life right now to glorify me. Can you say selfish? Prideful? Arrogant? Flat out wrong? Yeah, it’s okay. I’m ready to hear it right now because God has broken me and for the first time in a long time, I am ready to be changed.
Another thing happened. As some of you know I have been experiencing some severe symptoms over the past two weeks. Vomiting, nausea, severe dizziness, low grade fevers… The ultra sound results came back inconclusive and I am getting ready to schedule some serious tests that I am just NOT looking forward to. So much so that when the nurse asked me if I wanted her to schedule my appointments, I told her that I would call back.
I know that God is great. I know that He has the power to heal, the power to make new… I understand and believe all that. However what I have always struggled with is believing that God wants to heal ME, that he wants to USE ME. Last night at the end of the concert they just had a time for open prayer and I did something that I have never been able to do. I asked for prayer for healing. I didn’t do it right away. I didn’t even do it willingly. I stayed in my awesome front row center (thanks Dusty!) chair and sang the praise and worship songs and was literally fighting with God the entire time. “Okay! You win! Fine!” I got up and walked up to the stage (again, like 4 feet from my chair :) ) and explained what had been going on, and explained that I had never asked for this before and that I am the person who continues to shoulder all of my burdens even though I know they are nothing for the Lord and he wants them. He asked me if I believed that the Lord could heal me and I said yes. We prayed.
I don’t know what this feels like for everyone, but while he was praying my stomach got twisted and turned and pulled and I’m not going to lie – it did not feel very good. But the fact of the matter is that by the time the prayer was finished, that pain was over and I felt amazing. Since then, through prayer and claiming that I believe that He can heal, I have fought off what I thought were the beginnings of two dizziness spells. Do you know what’s funny though? I apparently should have asked for COMPLETE healing.
Since last night, I have had more fights with Satan than I have in months. Dirty rotten… Seriously. I was talking to Dusty and driving back and minding my own business when all of a sudden I turned the wheel, and my broken finger that for the most part is healed? OH MY GOSH IT HURT. I was in so much pain and I didn’t even freaking do anything! I didn’t bang it, I didn’t turn it wrong… I was so mad! Stupid Satan…
Oh! Yeah, and he did not want us to get to the concert either! I got on 85 N instead of S to get to Gastonia. I was almost 100% out of gas and couldn’t get the pump to work because apparently when I had activated my new card earlier that day it didn’t actually activate… It was the funniest, most frustrating thing ever!
Anyway… I think that’s all I have for now. Thanks for sticking with it. Thanks for being awesome and making me feel awesome knowing that people actually want to read what I write. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.
<3
Only comment I have is GOJESUS...GOJESUS....GOJESUS!!! He has an amazing way of getting our attention back when it wanders, hey?
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, kiddo...don't be so hard on yourself! As Christians, every one of us goes through periods, spells, stretches of time, call it what you will, where we try to duck, hide, ignore and/or run away from God. And if you meet someone who says they never have? Pray that Jesus forgives them for lying, because that's a big, fat one!!!
We're all human and as such? We're all victims
of our sinful nature. We can love Jesus with our whole heart, soul, mind and body and we're still going to turn away from Him and sin. It's just how we're wired. The GREAT thing is, that God knows this. He expects it and he doesn't demand perfection from us....He knows we're not capable of it....all He asks is that we TRY! And that when we fall flat on our face and fail? That we let Him help us get on our feet again so He can listen while we confess how we screwed up, forgive us the way He always will, and give us the strength to get back out there and try again!! And KEEP trying until the day we wake up on His side of the River and know that our struggles are finally over and it was all SO worth it!!
Love ya !!
Dusty