Trading in my useless robe.....

"Are you serious?!!" Were the words that tumbled from my mouth as I stood gasping in the bathroom mirror at the volcano about to erupt on my forehead. In the scheme of life a zit really isn't that big of a deal but to me it was an indication of much more I would come to find out later. As the days progressed the stress level did also and before I knew it I was in the hospital being transferred by ambulance 2-3 hours away to Cleveland Clinic for Shingles!

When the Doctor told me of the diagnosis  I was confused "it was just a zit right?" I soon realized that the stress that I had been carrying for so long was not only taking a toll on me emotionally but was now manifesting itself physically triggering shingles as a response to say "THAT'S ENOUGH!" It was an indicator to me that something had to change, that the exhaustion, discouragement and frustration I had been feeling was a reality check that I had somewhere along the way tried to take control over my circumstances and handle things "my way" instead of allowing the stressors and frustrations to be carried in the confident, secure, omnipotent arms of Christ. Shingles is triggered by stress and I chuckled when the Doctor told me that because I can't imagine why I would be stressed (insert thick sarcasm here :).

Since surgery 2 months ago my body has been on a crazy journey physically, emotionally and even spiritually. I have only been able to attend church once in 9 weeks which I have learned is a formula for disaster in itself. I don't care who you are or what your going through I know because I am living it right now that when you are separated from your church and those people who continually encourage and pray for you it's as if you are being disconnected from a vital power source in your life that helps sustain you each day. Each week as I have sat at home the enemy has gone to battle to isolate, discourage and wear me down mentally and spiritually. As I was tirelessly attacked from every angle by the devils schemes I failed to put on the armor of Christ and instead walked around in my own self made robe. The more my circumstances grew challenging the more I tried to take control and it created anger, frustration, hurt, isolation, sadness, and defeat. My family had to walk on eggshells because I was on overload physically and emotionally and would snap at any moment over any little thing.

As I sat in the ambulance feeling every bump and turn last week I had lots of time to think and realize that I had to let go and allow Christ back in. I had to decide that His ways are higher than mine and that I was downright EXHAUSTED and needed His supernatural strength to carry me on this journey. I had to decide to take off my own robe that was merely a disguise and useless so that I could clothe myself with the armor of Christ and stand up to the enemy who had beaten me down for months and backed me into a corner. I had to decide that I needed rescued, I needed God to be my superhero and all along He was waiting to swoop in and help but was merely waiting for me to call out His name. This week although my circumstances are still difficult I am deciding to let go and let God be in charge.

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning" Psalm 30:5.

The Lord has restored my heart, he has placed a new song on my lips and has given me hope to see a light at the end of the tunnel and today I am so thankful. 

"Come to Me when you are weak and weary. Rest snugly in My everlasting arms. I do not despise your weakness, My child. Actually, it draws Me closer to you, because weakness stirs up My compassion—My yearning to help. Accept yourself in your weariness, knowing that I understand how difficult your journey has been.

Do not compare yourself with others, who seem to skip along their life-paths with ease. Their journeys have been different from yours, and I have gifted them with abundant energy. I have gifted you with fragility, providing opportunities for your spirit to blossom in My Presence. Accept this gift as a sacred treasure: delicate, yet glowing with brilliant Light. Rather than struggling to disguise or deny your weakness, allow Me to bless you richly through it" Sarah Young (Jesus Calling).

49......

As I kissed and hugged my husband goodbye and then walked the long hall through vaulted corridors and rows and rows of white coats the fear set in. After what seemed like hours but knowing in my head it had only been a few minutes we stopped in front of a large surgical suite at the very end of the hall and over top of the door was the number 49. The tears that I had managed to so neatly keep locked up from deep inside started to creep out and an even greater fear set in. Over those next 10 minutes as I waited to be taken in there was an intense battle between allowing the enemy to get a foothold in and cause overwhelming fear and panic and the complete surrender to Christ and peace that He could bring. As they moved me in to room 49 I couldn't help notice shiny instruments laid out on the tables everywhere. Everyone was so busy and focused on the 10 hour surgery ahead and concentrating on all the details of the tasks at hand. Somewhere in the chaos though I wanted to shout my fears, I wanted them to know I had a husband who loves music, and a 7 year old daughter who lights up my life. I wanted them to know about my love for butterflies, my favorite Bible verse and the many people in my life who were anxiously awaiting results of the day. I wanted them to see the magnitude of the surgery through my eyes somehow. For them it's one of the many cases they will do that day, week, and year but for me it was that very moment in room 49 that would change my life forever.

The days ahead would prove to be difficult. The pain was more excruciating than I ever imagined it would be. I knew going in that it was going to be a big surgery but I had never seen so many tubes, drains, and monitors before and it was all very overwhelming. After a series of complications the doctors talked to us about the journey ahead and the healing process we would have to endure. My heart tried to be thankful that I was alive and that the surgery was done but my exhausted human body cried for the devastating news of what was ahead. Before surgery there were a million fears that would pop up but regardless I knew with confidence that the Lord would handle them on my behalf with victory and faithfulness. However my biggest fear of all was that we would have trouble with healing at the incision, I felt confident I could handle anything else that popped up but please not that complication. Well a few days after surgery that lurking fear was a reality. As I set myself mentally up for frequent dressing changes I knew it was going to be a battle that only the Lord could win through me. As I sobbed uncontrollably from the pain during one particular dressing change I remember thinking to myself "I can't do this" I was exhausted and the pain was nauseating. The doctors were projecting 3 more months of this and I just couldn't do it. But right in that moment the Lord sustained me.

I started thinking back to the months prior when I was able to sit on the sidelines of Macie's softball games. Our team is made up of 1st graders mostly and its been such a blessing because they have been together on the same team for the past 3 years since they started t-ball. To see each of them grow as people and ball players has been neat. Even since the beginning of this season they have gotten so much better at catching and hitting. As I sat on the sidelines while our team played the field and the other team was up to bat I would hear tink......tink......tink as batter after batter would get up to the plate and hit it for a single. But every once in a while one of the girls would get a hold of it and drive it hard out to the field. In that moment our girls would have to decide how to react to the drive hit our way. This is a lot like life and something I have realized even more so these past few months. Curve balls are constantly being hit our way through trials and storms and we have to be ready to react. We can allow the ball to roll past us or we can choose to step in and grab a hold of it and use that moment to make a play and take something away from it. We can in that moment allow the enemy to try and make a play against us and defeat us or we can choose to fight back and find victory through the challenge.

 We still have a long, challenging road ahead but what I am learning is that before we started down this road the Lord made me a promise. The Lord promised that if He leads us to a path and asks us to travel down it then He will be faithful and sustain us each step of the way. There have been so many moments where I didn't know how we were going to get through it and there have been times where I was so exhausted that it seemed impossible to see the end in sight but in those moments He has sustained us. The enemy has tried to hit curve balls our way to defeat us and throw us off but instead of being defeated we have chosen to react and fight back. It's not easy and there are moments where I need reminded and the enemy tries to step in and cause doubt and negativity but I am truly amazed at the strength God has given me to push through. I know I shouldn't be surprised because God promised from the beginning of this journey that He would sustain me with His supernatural strength and glory and because Jesus died on the cross I can count on His faithfulness and claim it as victory before, see it as truth during and celebrate like crazy after!!!!!!!!  

"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him." Psalm 28:7

Counting down with HOPE AND EXPECTANCY......

"You take me just as I am. You love beyond where I've been. You raise me up from the dead. You take me just as I am."

For the past two days each night as I shut my eyes and in the morning as I crawled out of bed these words have rang out in my heart. To know in my heart that not only does God accept me with open arms just as I am but He even goes further than that and loves me unconditionally beyond where I've been. Regardless of what lies before us in this life He is already there. When I rise and when I fall each day He is there. When I sit and when I stand He is my soft place to rest. With a little over two weeks until my surgery there are many emotions. There are moments where the enemy tries to fill my heart with fear until it cripples my spirit and then there are moments where I have confidence in the road ahead regardless of the outcome. How do you even begin to prepare for a journey that you know will be physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting? How do you openly welcome the trials and not allow those traits of humanness and fear get the best of you? I am so thankful for this time the Lord has given us to prepare and truly embrace our time together as a family. It's amazing when you know there is a storm on the horizon how much you appreciate the calmness of today. I have found myself laughing a little louder, hugging a little tighter and memorizing the sweet features of my husband and daughters precious face more intently down to every wrinkle and freckle.

I have shared before about this amazing new gravitation I have gained for butterflies. It seems everywhere I go I see butterflies. Just today a friend dropped off a beautiful butterfly necklace for me and then giving my daughter a bath tonight noticed on the shower curtain we have had forever it was decorated with butterflies. Maybe it's not that there are more of them out in the world than normal but that my heart has been opened to the beauty of what they mean.  Maybe it's because the blinders have come off and instead of being caught up in the distractions around me I am finding joy and beauty in the moment. The beauty of a butterfly isn't instantaneous but a process. A process that is long, difficult, and not so glamorous always but each season of a butterflies life cycle is significant and important and all contribute to the beauty and perfection of it's creation. As we count down the days until surgery I have realized not to look towards the fears and the unknown but instead to find beauty in each moment. I have realized that we are not to be consumed with the lies of the enemy but to pray with boldness and expectation for Gods greatness through whats ahead. In our humanness we can be consumed by the black and white but through Christ we can have hope that His plans are anything but ordinary, His plans are extraordinary. And as I see butterflies pop up each day along my path I wont see it as a coincidence but as a promise that He indeed is working.

"But as for me, I will look to the Lord and confident in Him I will keep watch; I will wait with HOPE and EXPECTANCY for the God of salvation, my God will hear me" Micah 7:7

Pedal, pedal, pedal.....

Pedal, pedal, pedal I yell down the sidewalk as my husband and I chase our daughter Macie on her bicycle holding our breath while she passes house after house without toppling over. It took a giant leap of faith and focus for her to decide that she was ready and after 3 years of trying to convince her to at least try, she DID IT!!!! The excitement from her little face was priceless as she zoomed by the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th house without toppling over.

The stopping and steering is still a work in progress and I noticed today that the neighbors parked their cars further down the street than normal, but I’m sure it was a fluke then again maybe they realized she ran into all of their cars head on yesterday lol.  The stopping is much better today and she has realized there are these little cushions called brakes on the bike and if she remembers to push them she will stop but it’s also totally acceptable to continue to jump off the bike into the grass going full speed like a stunt dummy jumping from a burning car. Her little legs are so banged up and there have been many tears shed but unlike the tears she has cried for the past few years in fear of getting hurt she now cries when we tell her it’s time to put her bike away for the night and to take a break. 

Two summers ago Macie started growing leaps and bounds and the bike she got when she was just a few years old started to become way too small for her. She has long legs and she could no longer pedal without her knees hitting the handlebars so excitedly we bought her a new bike. Well the new bike was a little big for her and it totally intimated her, she was really afraid of getting hurt and so instead of trying to learn to ride without training wheels she had to miss out on riding her bike with friends and other things. Lately though she has seen a lot of her friends at church her age and even much younger learn to ride their bikes and she started getting more interested in giving it another chance. 

So this past weekend Scott decided to lower the seat for her on her 2 year old bicycle with the tags and bright colored streamers still hanging from the handlebars and she realized she could now touch the ground with her feet while sitting on the seat. Just that tiny bit of security changed her total outlook on things and she excitedly took the challenge to learn. After many escape jumps, running into parked cars and chants from mommy and daddy, she DID IT! I think she even surprised herself and you could tell the pride within her little heart was amazing. 

Today when Macie got home from school she had a little package waiting on the kitchen table for her, a pink jeweled bell to add to her bike from mommy and daddy because we were so proud of her. As I watched her ride up and down our street tonight every time she passed our house she would ring that little pink bell and my heart would smile. A reminder that sometimes the journey ahead looks scary, sometimes we will fall and there will be pain but God is always standing nearby cheering us on and yelling “pedal, pedal, pedal.

 There will always be heartache, failures and imperfections in this life but God isn’t standing by counting our mistakes but instead helping us to push forward and succeed. It’s not about the length of our journey but the passion within our hearts to stay motivated, persevere, and push forward in spite of the adversity.

 “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize? So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours” 1 Corinthians 9:24

Honestly their wasn’t anything different about this weekend compared to 2 years ago for Macie that enabled her to physically ride her bike better but her spirit had found the motivation to fight and to keep pushing harder and harder and realizing that mommy and daddy were right there, we were watching over her and protecting her and excitedly believing in her and each time I hear that little pink bell ring out I will be reminded of God’s faithfulness, God’s protection that through Him we can yell WE DID IT!!!!!

“No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” Romans 8:37

Perfect Sacrifice......

"While you are spending time being consumed with what your going to bring to the altar in surrender I am excitedly preparing for the greatness I plan to give you." 

Driving down the road this past week one morning I really felt the Lord whisper, well actually shout, this promise to my heart. I was reminded in that moment of the story of Abraham and Isaac found in Genesis 22. 

“Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

There are so many awesome things about this story. To give you a little background information you must first know that Abraham was a successful livestock owner so when God asked him to take his son Isaac to the top of the mountain and provide a sacrifice he was first tested to make the first of many choices in which His obedience to the Lord would be revealed.

Abraham was a wealthy livestock owner (Abraham could have picked any livestock from His flock and taken it with him to the top of the mountain and it would have been enough, it would have been sufficient but God wanted it to go beyond enough, He wanted Abraham to see that if He would open his hands completely surrendering the journey to Him that He would provide greatness, He would provide more than what was sufficient.We read about the journey that Abraham and Isaac traveled and it wasn't like a 15 minute trip across town where he could catch a cab, it was a 3 day journey and estimated 50-60 miles. Imagine the emotions Abraham must have felt with each step he took knowing that he was going to travel for days and at the end of his journey he would have to sacrifice his son, his one and only son and child whom he loved so much.Imagine the worry and exhaustion his heart and mind must have felt because he knew what was ahead and what he had to do. The beauty of the story came though when Abraham got to the top of the mountain with Isaac and at exactly the right time God revealed a ram stuck in the thorns nearby and Isaac's life was spared.

  

With so many emotions and thoughts running through my head as we approach a difficult surgery in a few weeks its been so easy to be consumed with the journey ahead and the sacrifice I feel like the Lord is asking me to lay at the feet of His altar and surrender. The list of expectations I have placed on myself to prepare for this surgery is insane and I started to feel like how I imagine Abraham to have felt. Emotionally my heart was exhausted and I felt so much anxiousness. What if I wasn't strong enough, what if the house wasn't organized enough, what if people come to visit and I'm having a bad day? In the scheme of things did it really matter to God what Abraham brought to the altar tangibly? No, it was the concept of Abraham's obedience that God was after and for me this week I felt the Lord was saying that He doesn't expect me to do anything but surrender and walk forward on this journey in obedience and He will provide the perfect sacrifice. When Abraham was consumed with what he was going to lay at the altar God was merely preparing for what He was going to place in Abraham's empty hands. As we read on in the story God rewards Abraham for his faithfulness and obedience and pours out blessings over his life and multiplies Abraham's family so that Gods blessings could continue to have a rippling effect.

Right now I can’t see all the details, I can’t decode every part of the puzzle but what I know for certain is the Lords whispers over my life to not worry about whether my offering is the best but to surrender it fully. He will provide the blessing if only I make myself available to receive it.God doesn't want me to worry about the details of the journey but to instead focus on taking one step at a time and in the meantime He is excitedly preparing for the greatness He is planning to do and pour out over my life and onto others. 

Sometimes we get so caught up in the journey and the details along the way that we miss the concept that it's not about what we can bring to the altar but what God is going to pour out over us to take away from it