Hello all! I have to make this one quick because I have to go eat, but I didn't want to wait to blog about this because knowing me, I'm just like an Israelite and forget all the things God has done for me all too quickly! To summarize -- I haven't been feeling well. Been SOOO tired, and coughing, and breathy and coughing, etc etc. Well.. not only that I've been feeling like such a waste -- all I do is lay around -- what am I doing for God in THAT?! I haven't been wanting to read my Bible, or pray, or anything -- in other words.. feeling far from being who I want to be, who God wants me to be, and just bla! The Bible says that we do not live on bread alone -- meaning that we need God and His Word to fuel us and let me tell you, I DEFINITELY feel as if I've been running on empty way too long, and the weird part is the fuel is right within my grasp, and yet I don't reach for it. Why is that? There's a song lyric I like that says "why am I so afraid of the dark but I stray from the light?" ..
Last night I was really blessed to go to a church event called The Gathering. It was the first one we had, and God just made Himself so obviously there, I loved it! I even got invited to hang out afterwards with some friends, and that was such a blessing as well. However, I returned home, only to find myself in that tired/lazy/not wanting to do anything mood again today. I slept terribly last night.. or should I say I didn't sleep haha, so I slept in WAY too late today, and bla bla bla.. I could complain forever when I should be rejoicing forever! my bad! Anyway, I was praying today for God to just help me. I prayed for purpose -- He is the One who gives our lives purpose, so I prayed for him to give me a purpose again, give me a passion, help me recognize my gifts and help me use them for Him. My mom and I went out later on after I could finally get ready and stuff. When we came home, I was definitely in a better mood. Hands down my mom is one of the biggest blessings in my life.
Anyway.. still had a lot to do after my night time treatments and therapy, one of them being take a shower. Now I know this may sound silly to some of you... but sometimes I just dread taking showers. You really don't realize how much energy a shower takes until you have no energy to spare haha I used to be able to take showers like I pop pills (medical pills, of course! :P) but now, I need to plan to take a shower when I have nothing else going on, no other responsibility and no where to be because it just wipes me out. Well, tonight that timing happened to be after my therapy. I could take a shower, and then go downstairs to eat while watching a movie, and let my hair dry itself. So I'm in the shower, and I honestly can't even tell you how it started, I think maybe I just wanted to sing to God? I start singing in the shower. At first low, and then quickly increasing higher with more power. Side note: sometimes I don't even speak because my lungs, or myself just feels to tired to put forth the effort of pushing out air to talk. I usually can't speak if I wanted to during or after my shower because I'm either coughing so hard, or breathing so hard. Anyway, back to the story, the next thing I know I am fully belting out the song "Your Great Name" by Natalie Grant. Now when I say belting, I don't mean gasping for air, AT ALL, and I don't mean singing loudly but not with a lot of breath behind it. I mean full out breath in lungs to carry the notes (well hopefully notes... hahah! thank God he loves praises regardless!), not feeling breathless AT ALL, feeling like my lungs are plump and full and I can't even believe it. PRAISE JESUS !!!! HIS NAME IS GREAT!! I'm like sitting here laughing and crying at the same time at how good God is. I can't sing like that ever, forget about in the shower. And here I am, asking God to help me because I don't even know how to help myself anymore, and His Spirit just fills my lungs. I sang and then coughed ONCE -- an easy, clearing cough. Finished my shower with a few little coughs here or there, and then blow dryed my hair -- I can't even tell you how awesome our God is. He blesses us when we are praising Him -- it's supposed to be all about Him and He still gives back to us. I don't even have words.
I sang in the shower tonight because God is love.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
"You say I am blessed because of this..."
Well hello there! Long time no talk, my bad. Instead of covering what's been going on, and by that I mean the details of how nice God has been because nothing new is going on in my life haha, I'm going to focus on one topic in particular.. or at least try to (sorry if I end up babbling onto another track). Suffering.
Lately I haven't been sleeping well at all. I usually don't actually get into a good sleep until the early early morning. I've also really been feeling like I need my nebulizers, particularly in the morning. So I typically am ready to fall asleep, but either cant, or wake up in an hour because I can't breathe that well. I then get up, do my treatments and therapy, and go back to sleep. That's all fine and well for now, but I have noticed myself getting more easily aggitated, and like more aggitated than I should be over things. Anyway, last night I'm going to bed super late (it's easier to just stay awake then try to sleep and get upset), and I am laying in bed after my shower and am coughing (shocker).. Except it turns out that at 3am, I started coughing up blood. Now if you get grossed out easily, skip these next few sentences.
There's different coughing up blood scenarios. With CF, you have to watch for blood in your mucus when you cough. That's not good. Sometimes it's a little blood, and sometimes its enough that you see more blood than mucus, but either way is bad. However, I'm no doctor haha but I think it's worse if you are just coughing up blood. Like no mucus, or anything. Just blood. And that's what I was doing last night.
So anyway, my mom's the greatest and stayed up with me looking at old photo albums I had in my room until the coughing subsided and when I did cough, the blood lessened. I mean it's not like I was coughing up the red sea or something, but it's still alarming. So then it was time to sleep, and what a surprise to find out I couldn't! After tossing and turning and almost sleeping but not quite, around 8am I finally fell into a nice deep sleep... only to be woken up. I was livid. But I don't want to vent about that on here haha so quickly moving on, I couldn't fall back asleep after I had been woken up, and I didn't want to have the wrong heart attitude, and I wanted to sleep! But since I was up, I took my morning steroids, e-mailed my doc, prayed A LOT lol and talked to my mom on the phone who suggested that I put some God music on. I did and prayed some more. I was SURE that today was going to absolutely stink.
I couldn't sleep when I wanted to, and I couldn't do my morning treatments or therapy. (Remember how I've been really feeling like I need them?).. So I put the music on and listened as I lay there praying still. Was I thanking God for waking me up another day? Or for his grace, faithfulness, etc? Nope. I was praying that I wouldn't have a bad attitude and help me breathe. And guess what? He did.
Now I started this blog saying I'm going to talk about suffering, and I by no means meant that I was going to complain about my own suffering (I hate to even call it that). But God reminded me today that it is a privilege to suffer for Christ.
Yes, the bible actually says that.
"For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him." Philippians 1:29
Now I don't fully understand this privilege, yet. And I was battling of whether suffering meant being persecuted for Christ, or other suffering, like not breathing (again I'd just like to say I do not think what I am doing is even close to suffering, but it is hardship, which is a distant cousin to suffering :P). And then God gave me this thought --
"The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right." Psalm 84:11
There's also a verse somewhere that talks about how God won't prolong your suffering any longer than necessary to achieve his will and glory, but I can't remember where it is and I don't want to run upstairs to go find it lol. But the point is that if he hasn't healed me yet, that means his will has not yet been accomplished through this .. which to me says I'm doing his work, which the Bible says to me .. is a privilege.
Someone once said to me that God entrusted me with this. I never thought of it like that. Hold tight when you're facing hardship .. because it may not be the awful situation your mind immediately interprets it as. In fact, you may be entrusted with quite a privilege.
Oh and today, I slept from 10-12 and then from 12-3, went outside, talked, and am now typing this. It's 6:11pm and I still haven't done my treatments or therapy. I haven't coughed up any blood since noonish, and God has refreshed my attitude and squeezed my heart. We serve the nicest Lord ever; Jesus! <3
I am privileged because God is love.
P.S. this is the song I was listening to today that God used to remind me I am blessed. Check it out -- really good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy8y6dDzYcE
Lately I haven't been sleeping well at all. I usually don't actually get into a good sleep until the early early morning. I've also really been feeling like I need my nebulizers, particularly in the morning. So I typically am ready to fall asleep, but either cant, or wake up in an hour because I can't breathe that well. I then get up, do my treatments and therapy, and go back to sleep. That's all fine and well for now, but I have noticed myself getting more easily aggitated, and like more aggitated than I should be over things. Anyway, last night I'm going to bed super late (it's easier to just stay awake then try to sleep and get upset), and I am laying in bed after my shower and am coughing (shocker).. Except it turns out that at 3am, I started coughing up blood. Now if you get grossed out easily, skip these next few sentences.
There's different coughing up blood scenarios. With CF, you have to watch for blood in your mucus when you cough. That's not good. Sometimes it's a little blood, and sometimes its enough that you see more blood than mucus, but either way is bad. However, I'm no doctor haha but I think it's worse if you are just coughing up blood. Like no mucus, or anything. Just blood. And that's what I was doing last night.
So anyway, my mom's the greatest and stayed up with me looking at old photo albums I had in my room until the coughing subsided and when I did cough, the blood lessened. I mean it's not like I was coughing up the red sea or something, but it's still alarming. So then it was time to sleep, and what a surprise to find out I couldn't! After tossing and turning and almost sleeping but not quite, around 8am I finally fell into a nice deep sleep... only to be woken up. I was livid. But I don't want to vent about that on here haha so quickly moving on, I couldn't fall back asleep after I had been woken up, and I didn't want to have the wrong heart attitude, and I wanted to sleep! But since I was up, I took my morning steroids, e-mailed my doc, prayed A LOT lol and talked to my mom on the phone who suggested that I put some God music on. I did and prayed some more. I was SURE that today was going to absolutely stink.
I couldn't sleep when I wanted to, and I couldn't do my morning treatments or therapy. (Remember how I've been really feeling like I need them?).. So I put the music on and listened as I lay there praying still. Was I thanking God for waking me up another day? Or for his grace, faithfulness, etc? Nope. I was praying that I wouldn't have a bad attitude and help me breathe. And guess what? He did.
Now I started this blog saying I'm going to talk about suffering, and I by no means meant that I was going to complain about my own suffering (I hate to even call it that). But God reminded me today that it is a privilege to suffer for Christ.
Yes, the bible actually says that.
"For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him." Philippians 1:29
Now I don't fully understand this privilege, yet. And I was battling of whether suffering meant being persecuted for Christ, or other suffering, like not breathing (again I'd just like to say I do not think what I am doing is even close to suffering, but it is hardship, which is a distant cousin to suffering :P). And then God gave me this thought --
"The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right." Psalm 84:11
There's also a verse somewhere that talks about how God won't prolong your suffering any longer than necessary to achieve his will and glory, but I can't remember where it is and I don't want to run upstairs to go find it lol. But the point is that if he hasn't healed me yet, that means his will has not yet been accomplished through this .. which to me says I'm doing his work, which the Bible says to me .. is a privilege.
Someone once said to me that God entrusted me with this. I never thought of it like that. Hold tight when you're facing hardship .. because it may not be the awful situation your mind immediately interprets it as. In fact, you may be entrusted with quite a privilege.
Oh and today, I slept from 10-12 and then from 12-3, went outside, talked, and am now typing this. It's 6:11pm and I still haven't done my treatments or therapy. I haven't coughed up any blood since noonish, and God has refreshed my attitude and squeezed my heart. We serve the nicest Lord ever; Jesus! <3
I am privileged because God is love.
P.S. this is the song I was listening to today that God used to remind me I am blessed. Check it out -- really good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy8y6dDzYcE
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