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
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