What God Has Been Saying

On Friday evening, I ended up at the ER, as most of you probably read on Facebook.  After struggling with the runs for 10 days, cutting out all wheat, dairy and sugar, I ended up running to the bathroom 6 times in 25 min. after eating a chicken salad with homemade dressing for supper.  I was so scared and what kept running through my mind was the fact that my Mom, my Grandma and my uncle all used to have Ulcerative Colitis.  I don’t know why my mind just went to one of the worst extremes.  It was not helpful!  After I got there, I called my Mom and she was at her friend’s house.  Her + her friends prayed for me, as well as others as I asked for prayer on Facebook before I left for the hospital.  I felt those prayers and as I sat in the ER for hours, God’s peace settled over me.  He told me two things.  The first one was, “You know, there are no ER’s in heaven.”  I was SO encouraged by that, as it’s a terrible place to be.  There was an old, overweight man sitting beside me coughing up phlegm and spitting it into his cloth the whole time I was there.  It was disgusting!  We have A LOT to look forward to!  The 2nd thing He said was, “Your times are in my hands.”  Yes, I can completely trust Him!  I’m so thankful that it appears I just had a virus.  God is good all the time.

Every year, I ask God for His Word for me for the year and this past year was joy.  Even though I experienced a lot of emotional pain, I also experienced a lot of joy as I kept counting my blessings in my thankful journal every day and the times that I focused on Jesus instead of on what was going on in my life.  God already gave me his word for this year and it’s “surrender.”  I said to Him, “Can’t we just stick with joy?  I like that one better.”  Surrender is hard, but I’m already learning more about that.  No matter how hard I try to eat right, which is good and no matter how I try to control things, I am realizing that I’m so not in control.  I need to trust God with my health, because my health comes from Him.  My body comes from Him, my whole life is from Him.  His plans are way better than mine, so I need to surrender my will to His.  He told me He wants to make my faith like gold.  I know the refining process is not always a fun one, but it will be so worth it!  I don’t know what God has in store for this year, but I know it’s good and I need to surrender every day to Him.  I pray we all grow in the Lord this year.  Happy new year!