Training in Progress

It has been a while since I sat down to write. I just have not felt the desire to get my thoughts out of my head. Maybe that is one of the reasons for some of the aggravations I been experiencing lately; I’ve stayed in my head and not given up my worries to God. Well, I’ve done the complaining routine with Him but not really left all of my concerns in His hands. As I sit here thinking about how God has been working in our lives recently, it is easy to see all of the aggravations and get overwhelmed. Since February, our household has made more trips to see various doctors than we have in the last 3+ years combined. It has felt like a constant health roller coaster with all of the ups and downs, twists and turns. While it has not been anything serious, all of the little ailments can have similar mental and physical strains on the body when they are all coming back to back. Having all of this hit us like it did has me thinking, “Why, what’s the purpose?”.

While I ask that question, God is reminding me of a topic that I have been pulling out of various movies, books, Facebook posts, etc. lately. That topic is that God is always training us for future events in life. Sometimes the trainings are simple and we don’t even realize that they are happening. Yet other times we feel beat down and struggle with continuing on while He trains us. Here is what I am starting to understand from these trainings: 1) Our failures or misunderstandings change our perspectives so that we can see a different level of truth that is before us; 2) Each ailment helps us be more in tune with our bodies and what they are telling us (even if it is to slow down and enjoy the moment more often); 3) Learn to get out of our own heads by talking to others or at least to God; 4) He loves us even in the messy chaos of life.

While we may never fully understand why we had to experience so many aggravations all at once or even why we had to experience those particular ones, we are taking what we can from them and moving forward; always looking to God to pull us through. One of those aggravations has been the constant one step forward, two steps back dance that is our Spinraza journey. Hopefully, in the next month or so we’ll have a big step forward, but for now we’ll just keep dancing where we are; yet another training session in progress.

There is a Facebook post that I read recently that gave me a new perspective to look from while dealing with these aggravations. Maybe it will help you too, especially if you are feeling down or overwhelmed by the ugly side of life right now. I am not sure who wrote it or anything about where it came from, but God used it to speak to me. So, I will share it in hopes that it will help someone else.

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BROKEN AND FIXED!!

I was in Dollar Tree last night and there was a lady and two kids behind me in the LONG line. One was a big kid, one was a toddler. The bigger one had a pack of glow sticks and the baby was screaming for them so the Mom opened the pack and gave him one, which stopped his tears. He walked around with it smiling, but then the bigger boy took it and the baby started screaming again. Just as the Mom was about to fuss at the older child, he bent the glow sticks and handed it back to the baby. As we walked outside at the same time, the baby noticed that the stick was now glowing and his brother said "I had to break it so you could get the full effect from it." I almost ran because l could hear God saying to me, "I had to break you to show you why I created you. You had to go through it so you could fulfill your purpose." That little baby was happy just swinging that "unbroken" glow stick around in the air because he didn't understand what it was created to do which was "glow". There are some people who will be content just "being" but some of us that God has chosen, we have to be "broken". We have to get sick. We have to lose a job. We go through divorce. We have to bury our spouse, parents, best friend, or our child because, in those moments of desperation, God is breaking us but when the breaking is done, then we will be able to see the reason for which we were created.

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God,

We pray that you break us and let us glow for your purpose. We pray for all those that are being trained to continue pushing through the training session even though it is painful. We pray for their strength and for ours. We know you see what we are going to be coming up against far better than we can and we are ready to bow down to you and lean on you (especially during the tough training sessions). Train us to be stronger soldiers in your army.

In Jesus name we pray, Amen!