A Gift From God.

It has always been said that children are a "gift from God". I was lucky enough to be born unto parents that truly believed that my sister and I were a gift. They had trouble getting pregnant, so when they did, I was their first miracle baby, and my sister was the second. No matter what happened, my parents made sure that my sister and I knew that we were loved.

When my sister and I got a little older, we made a family decision to get an adoption license. It took a while, but we got it and we were placed with a little girl. That is another very long story, but eventually her parent got better and was able to take her home again. For us, it was heartbreaking, but for her, she finally felt loved by her biological mother. A couple years later, we were placed with my other sister. She was ten at the time. When we first asked her if she wanted to be adopted into our family, she said of course. She was so excited to be part of the family. She did come from a loving home where her step mother took care of her. She was just one of the luckier foster kids. We adopted her almost a year and a half later.

When we talked about it as a family again, we agreed that we still had more love in our home that we would love to share. We now have 3 1/2 year old twin girls. They are just in foster care, but I fell in love with them the first time that they came to visit. I want to adopt them more than anything, but I need to let that go, and give that decision making to God. These girls at 3 1/2 went through more trauma than my now 12 year old sister ever did. They are beautiful girls, who brighten up the house. I make sure that I hug and kiss them all the time, and then I follow that up with saying "I Love You". At first, they would just smile when anyone said that, but now they are beginning to say it back.

It is hard to believe that a mother and father who can't handle kids, have them, while people who want kids more than anything don't. I believe though, that God has put these other families here, so that they will take care of God's precious children. I am very lucky and I know that. I know that I am loved, and that I am always welcomed home. God has given my family the opportunity to expand our family, and give love to children who get left behind.

Medical Update.

I have been blogging about my medical issues this past month. There have been a lot. It has been a long hard test that is driving me insane. I go through good nights and bad just like everyone else. I do sometimes ask God why He is doing this to me, only to be reminded that He is NOT doing it to me. I know that He will get me through this, but sometimes I forge. This is where my accountability partner steps in and makes me actually think about who I am placing the blame on, and where it really should be. Right now I am very very tired, and I didn't blog yesterday and I am not sure that I will tomorrow.

Yesterday my mom took me to one of the best hospitals in the state. I go there for my arthritis, and I was really looking forward to finally getting the help that I needed. I got to the emergency room at 12:30. My mom and I had eaten lunch at 12:00. We checked in and the waiting began. See the only problem with that was that we sat in the waiting room until 4:30. By then I was over heated and on the number scale, my pain was a ten. Three nurses came in to ask me all the same questions, yet none of them would give me any pain killers. Finally they gave me the IV medicine that worked well when I was in the hospital the last time, but the nurse only put half of the dose in that I always got. Of course it didn't work.

Twenty minutes later I went into X-ray, and then back to the room, where two different ortho people came and played with my knee. The women said that she needed to stick a needle into my knee and suck stuff out. She said that I would be put to sleep before it, and that made me feel better. Then, the ER nurse came in and told me that the atending said no to the sedative. She gave me an anti-anxiety medication. I received no pain killers, or numbing stuff. I felt everything that they did to my knee.

Then hallucinations began to arrive in my head. It was the worst feeling in the world. I tried to tell the nurse what was wrong but she just left me. I then began to have a seizure. Nothing was working, and the ER nurse told me that it was my fault because I was too anxious. A few minutes later, I couldn't feel my face, and then my arms and soon my legs. After a few more awful things happened, they gave me benadryl. I felt very sick all of a sudden, and I asked the nurse for medication. She said that she couldn't because it would have been too much for me, but at the other hospital I got it when I needed it. After that I threw up. I hadn't eaten in 12 hours at that point so it was not good. Then she gave me more nausea medication.

 The ortho people wanted to keep me over night, but then the ER docs put a little more of the pain killer into me and sent me home. Today was not good at all. I needed to stay at the hospital. My mom filled me with sleeping pills today so that I didn't have to be awake to feel the pain. I am so blessed to have her with me. Tomorrow I am going with my dad to the doctor. I am not looking forward to it, because through all of this I have been with my mom. Shes my mommy. I love my dad so much, but like every other kid when I am sick its mom I run to. He tries his best but hes still a dad. I am just going to have to give it to God and not let my anxiety wash over me again.

God's Gentle Reminder.

Almost a month ago I found myself in excruciating pain, laying on my bed, waiting for the doctor to call me into the ER. I hadn't been outside in over a week, and I wasn't looking forward to it. Everything seeemed to be going wrong, and I was tired of hearing everyone say that they were praying for me, when to me, it looked like God forgot about me. When I got into the car and we pulled out, I began to see flakes of snow. It made me smile for the first time since the pain started. It was then that I realized God was with me, and that He was going to get me through.

When I was little, I began to love snow. As I got older snow became the one solid thing that could always make me feel like everything would be okay. When I see the snow, I picture it being God. As snow falls, before it sticks, it is wet, and it washes away dirt. Then it proceeds to cover everything in its beauty. Making everything new and special. I think of God in that same sense. He washes away our sins, and He covers us with His love. Snow has become something that will bring me to tears, just because I see it as God sending a message to me that He will take care of things.

The snow season ended abruptly after I went into the hospital. Since then, life has gone on and the pain has gotten worse. So many things in my life are changing and I am struggling to keep going. Every single night the pain is so severe that I pray for God to just let me go. I have become frustrated with God, because so many people are praying for me, and I am pleading with the Lord to take this all away and let me heal, but it's just getting worse. Last night was one of the worst nights I have had since February. I had to talk it through with a friend because I was ready for a mental breakdown. I went deep into prayer and felt a little more at peace last night, but I was still very anxious.

Today, I woke up early because all four of my sisters were making some sort of loud noises every time I would start to fall back to sleep. My mom called all of my doctors and we got different responses. It just seems that all I ever get is bad news, and the pain was getting worse because it was raining. A little while later, when I looked out the kitchen window, there was snow coming down. God sent this snow to remind me that He is still there, and although I am in more pain than I can deal with, He will send the help that I need. Today, this snow is God's way of telling me to keep holding on, because He still holding onto me.

When your life is falling to pieces, and no one has the answers, look around, because I am positive that God is still there, and that He is sending you some sort of silly sign to remind you that He loves and you will never leave you.

Lose Control, Lose Chaos.

I have talked before, about having a mild form of obsessive compulsive disorder. I like it when things are organized. That doesn't mean that everything is perfectly clean, but that there is an order to it. My house has always been all over the place. Sometimes it's organized, and other times we are too busy running around to clean up right away. Through all of that, I always knew that when I walked into my room it would be as organized as I left it. I kept everything in the order that I loved. I will admit that when laundry was put all over my floor by my siblings, I had a tendency to kneel on the floor and cry. The worst was when I had a bad day, and I came into an unorganized bedroom. To add control to the chaos in my head, I would clean like crazy, but now I am stuck in bed on the first floor of my home.

Last week, my sister had to move into my room. I was upset that this was happening, but we came to the aggreement that she wouldn't change anything until I was well enough to get upstairs. Well with help the other day, I went up the stairs to clean up, and after I was done, I peered down the hall into my room. I immeadiatly panicked. I hopped down the hall into my room, to find everything out of place. My neatly organized book shelves and vanity, we in shambles. My sisters belongings were everywhere. There was not one place in the room that was mine anymore. There were hooks stuck in the wall, and clothes thrown across my "faith" sign. About a year ago, I began to change everything in my room from secular posters, to Bible verses in frames, and matching decorations. I had candles and sofistocated pictures. I was moving my room from a pre-teen room, to a young Christian woman's room. All of the work was destroyed. When I tried to relay that frustration to my parents, I got a reaction of unhappiness. They scolded me for not understanding my sisters "situation".

Well, first of all, I should say, that they read this blog, and to them, I also say, that although I was extremely hurt that they didn't understand, I also was given some wisdom on my relationship with the Lord. My biggest issue was that my one place where I had total control, and my place to be with the Lord and figure things out, was taken over by the person that I sometimes need to get away from. I do not have a place of my own anymore. I understand that its whats best for the family, but I was hurt by this loss of control. See, the Lord tells us that we need to lean not on ourselves, and give everything to Him. I need to lose that control, because it is not mine to have in the first place.

It is one of the hardest things that I fight myself on every single day. I give control of my mind to the Lord, but I still hold onto my secular material objects. I think that sometimes I don't want to let go of some of the things that I think I have full control over. The fact of the matter is that in the end our methods of control, are sin. The control that the Lord has on our lives, is amazing. If we give Him everything, and lean on Him, He will see us through.

Like A Good Neighbor God's Always There.

I was watching television today, and there was a state farm commercial on. I love their new commercials, they are so funny. Different people find themselves in different situations, and one friend sings the State Farm jingle, and their agent appears. Then the other friend sings it and makes something appear with the agent. I'm sure I heard this idea somewhere, but as I was watching, I thought of God. He is ALWAYS there.

In my life I have tried to hide from God. It sounds silly right now, because I know that God sees everything in my life. When I feel like I am falling apart, and awful things are happening in my life, I would turn to God and blame Him for everything. I tried to make myself believe that He wasn't there, and that He wasn't listening to me. It was easier to believe that, than to admit that I was just not calling on Him. I think that I was trying to push out the one solid thing in my life. With God, you can never really fall apart because He won't let you.

We play the blame game and the anger card. There is so much making us feel chaotic, that we want to pick a central area to place all of that anger and all of that blame. When we finally bury ourselves deep enough, we won't find rock bottom. We will find ourselves faced with a choice, give up and the Lord will hold you from falling, or reach out and accept the God's outstretched arm. No matter where you are, or what you've done, when you call on the name of our Lord, He will be there.

So God holds true to the state farm jingle. He is always there. However, in the commercial the clients sing the jingle to get their agents to appear, but with God, you don't have to speak a word, and He is there. It is a gift, and a promise that was made to us. In the second half of Matthew 28:20 the Lord said, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

God Sees What's Going On.

We all get into a position where we have sinned, but we do not want to talk about that sin. We feel either feel guilty or we are embarrassed to think that anyone would find out.We are so quick to point out other's mistakes, but when someone points out ours we try to hide. It is a fact written in the Bible, that we have sinned. We are all sinners, but someone else has already paid for our sins. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" John 3:16. That verse is so commonly known and it becomes routine. It is so much more than that though. When we sin, we are embarrassed and we feel guilt but we get to live. Jesus died FOR our sins so that we had the chance to live our eternal life.

I will be the first to admit that every single day I have sin. Now, when I am caught in the sin, I am not going to admit it as freely as I do now. Think about children, when they get caught taking a cookie, they try and hide the cookie, and pretend like they haven't done anything wrong, even though Mommy sees that cookie. It's obvious that Mom that the child took something, but they try and let the kid admit that they have done wrong. We try to ignore our sin, and pretend that God doesn't see it, but He does, and He is waiting for us to admit that we are wrong.

We try to make excuses and find ways to get out of trouble. God can see everything that we do even when we think that we are alone. He hears every thought that we have. The only way to make yourself right with God is to confess to Him our sin and ask to be forgiven. I was reminded of that this week during Bible study. We try to justify in our minds, the sin that we have committed. Hiding sin will put a block in our Christian walk.

This next week, make it an effort to admit your sin and find forgivness from the Lord. It won't be an easy task but it is an important one.

We must first confess that we have done something wrong, and then we can ask for forgiveness from the Lord.

Where Is Your Heart.

When we are young, and I guess even some when they are old, are taught to ask Jesus into our hearts. He lives in our hearts. Not in the literal worldly definition, but in the spiritual definition. Those of us who were young when we accepted Jesus into our hearts forever, were not quite old enough to understand that your heart plays an even bigger part in our faith. Anyone can sit at a computer and write a blog of testimonies, or become a Sunday School teacher, or be in a leadership roll at the Church, but we are wrong, if we are involved in all of these things, and our hearts are not in the right place.

We become hypocrites, when we preach of living our lives for Christ, even though in our hearts, we are not fully devoted to Him. I am always reminded of the movie, "Left Behind". Ministry heads, especially Pastors and Reverends are held to a higher standard than your average worshiper. Although in God's eyes we are all equal, here in this world, we expect more of them. We trust that they know the Word, and that they are leading us in our walks. This doesn't really seem fair, when we all are supposed to live our lives showing the love of God, but that how it is. In the movie, you are brought into a church, where the pastor is standing at the pulpit crying out to the Lord, asking Him, why he was left behind. Later in the movie, he realizes that he was just speaking the words, and his heart wasn't in it. You could say that he wasn't practicing what he preached.

Prayer cannot just be words that you speak out of routine. You cannot fully accept the love of Christ if you live with more doubt than faith. Even the worldly definition of the word faith says "complete trust". The Lord has provided us with His Word so that if we have the slightest amount of doubt in our hearts, we can read what He has to say. Next time you open your mouth to pray, first think about where your heart really is. Are you about to divote the next few seconds/minutes/hours to the Lord completely. Or is your mind wondering and taking your heart along with it.

At my house, when we were little we were taught different prayers. As little kids we couldn't remember in depth prayers, so we learned the simple ones for things like the blessing's for meals. Some Christians change that prayer as they grow older and are able to form their own prayers that come from their hearts. My sister, however, insist on praying the EXACT same prayer for every meal. Sometimes they rush through it so that we can eat. Those prayers have become impersonal, and I know that when I pray them, I don't put my heart into it, and its so routine that I don't really need to think about it.

I challenge you to stop before you open your Bible, or begin praying. Figure out where your heart is. Are you ready to listen and accept anything that the Lord could be about to tell you? or is this another fluff prayer that you have said so many times its tattooed to your eyelids. Jesus is in our hearts, we have accepted Him in. It's time to take another look and stop rushing through everything because we are too "busy" to slow down. This is a matter of heart and head. Don't make this about your chaotic life, and no time to do anything. God created us, we wouldn't be here without Him, so we need to make time. Clear your head and open your heart fully.