Missing the Miracle

In January of 2007, I answered an inner calling to travel to Spokane, Washington.  I’m not a spontaneous person, but something tugged at me with a strength and allure I could not deny–hope.

One of my friends from college lived up there and told me about the Healing Rooms.  It was a place people came from all over to seek and find healing prayer.  I’ve had health problems my entire life.  Even with advances in technology, my diabetes was severe, and the very modern day conveniences that made controlling it easier often caused me great pain.  I had only been diagnosed with celiac three years before and was still in denial.  On top of that, I had been struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts for the past fourteen years.

So I bought a plane ticket, even though I hate to fly and dislike travel, not to mention it was freezing cold in a place that saw heavy snowfall.  (While there, I learned that snow is only pretty after the first fall.  Then it becomes brown slush.)  I was a senior in college, and was spending my cherished winter break chasing hope.

My friend took me to visit the Healing Rooms.  It was like a free clinic, in a way.  First come, first serve.  There were several rooms where volunteers gathered in numbers of two or three to meet with people and pray over them.  They praised a high success rate, and even local hospitals invited them to come down and pray with patients.  I didn’t go in that first day.  We looked around, picked up a few pamphlets and a book, and went home where we dove into the Bible, examining the verses and passages their faith was based on.  We even visited some local pastors to discuss the matter with them.

And you know what?  I found no flaw in their beliefs.

I went back to the Healing Rooms and asked for prayer that God would cure me of my diabetes and gluten allergy.  Before they prayed, one of the men stepped forward and said he sensed there was something else I needed healing from–my depression.  I had forgotten about it, believing that if my physical troubles were over, that would follow.  They laid hands on me and prayed for healing, calling upon the promises in the Bible and the promise of life in Christ.

And I believed.

Then came the tricky part: when would I experience my full healing?  For the next couple days, my diabetes got markedly better.  I started decreasing my medication without consequence.  But days turned into weeks, and weeks into months.  Still, I held on to this hope that God would heal me of my afflictions.

Hope turned to disappointment, to anger.

Before you come to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist or miracles don’t happen, let me say that in my anger and hurt, I missed the miracle.  I am sad to say that it took me a whole year before I realized that God indeed had healed something very important–my depression.  Since that day, I have not had one day lost to despair, one suicidal thought.  God may not have healed me the way I wanted, but He did heal the thing that was preventing me from having a relationship with Him.

I still believe God will heal me of the other stuff someday, though whether it be in this life or in the next, that is up to Him.  I realized the wrongness in my prayers those years ago.  God is not a genie for us to call upon when we want something.  Answering my prayer the *way* I wanted would not have brought Him glory.  Even today, in this new year, not knowing how I will pay for my medical supplies without insurance, deeply desiring miraculous healing so life would be easier, I know that it would not teach me faith the way God wants to.

Stripped of everything I have ever depended on, I am left with only Him.  There is a profound peace to be had living in full dependence on God.  It is something I am only beginning to glimpse and understand, as fear still gnaws at me.  And while the road may be harder, if God were to grant me a healing modern medicine can’t explain, I would miss another, greater miracle–learning to live in and love God’s everyday provision.

~~~~~~~

Phoenix Feather is on sale now for $.99 on Amazon!

The feather and who it represents is both a catalyst for darkness and destruction, and the vessel of love and hope.  In a world full of joy and sorrow, love and misery, this agent is a light seeking a balance between two inevitable realities in a sinful world, and is ultimately the final hope for something better.

A Year of Harvest

2012 is here.  I don’t normally look back on a year and reflect on it.  I don’t stay up till midnight, counting down the seconds until a new year, a new life.  The transition is as normal and mundane as Monday going into Tuesday.  Yet, this time, I have a lot to reflect on, a lot to be thankful for.

I graduated from my interpreting training program (an accomplishment when you consider the average dropout rate).  On the same day, I published my first paranormal romance on Amazon and Smashwords.  You can imagine how high on Cloud Nine I was.  In the Fall, I found work in my field (also an accomplishment in today’s economy), published my second novel, and wrote the first draft of its sequel.

Plus, the arrival of January marks the four-month milestone of my being 100% gluten free, something I never thought would happen.  When I finally went off the gluten back in August because of a health scare, I didn’t think I’d last one month.  I certainly never expected to make it to the new year.  Not only did I make it, but I’m not even tempted to break faith.  Bring on five months of gluten-free.  Six.  Maybe even a year.  I’m an addict who’s finally been freed from those chains, though I know it will be a decision every single day not to go back on it.  But what I’ve told myself and come to believe is “I don’t need it.”

So, despite some major health setbacks, this year has been very blessed and prosperous.  I don’t know what 2012 will hold, though already some major challenges are before me.  Even if I’m about to enter the desert or the fire, I know my God is with me.  He is gracious and merciful, and His promises are true.  This time, I am not afraid to learn faith.  After all, He didn’t let me down this year.

This is my prayer in the harvest
When favor and providence flow
I know I’m filled to be emptied again
The seed I’ve received I will sow

What did 2011 teach you?  Was it a year of harvest, of trials by fire, of desert?  What do you expect for the coming year?

Sowing Seeds in the Soul

When I was seven-years-old, a doctor told me I probably wouldn’t live to be eighteen.

I don’t know why he told me that.  Sure, my diabetes was severe, but not untreatable.  I do know his prognosis had a profound effect on me.  I’ve had a lot of health issues, and the idea of getting well has been like an unattainable dream.  In my mind, it’s an even further stretch than becoming published.  Because of this fatalistic mentality, I’ve never really taken my health seriously.  I’ve been allergic to gluten for eight years; I’ve only recently been 100% gluten free for almost three months.  I know exercise is vitally important, but every exercise regimen I have ever started hasn’t lasted a week.  It’s hard to care about your long-term health when subconsciously you don’t expect to ever get there.

I didn’t recognize the power of those few words until many years later.  Now I can look back and see how my subconscious sabotages can be traced back to that one moment that is burned into my memory.  I can’t remember anything else about that day, not even what the doctor looked like, just those words echoing in my mind.

I remember on my nineteenth birthday finally realizing that I had outlived my expiration date.  It was a great feeling, but it wasn’t strong enough to reverse the seed that had been planted and sown over the past ten years.  Our internal processing is filled with voices whispering at us.  The problem is, that after a while, those voices start to sound like our own, and we listen.  “Every time you solve one health problem, another pops up; why not just live with the curse you know?  You’ll never be healthy, so things like exercise and eating well won’t make a difference.  With your health record, you still probably won’t live that long.”

We need a gardener to come in and trim back the overgrown weeds to find the sapling underneath that never had a chance to properly grow.  Those weeds are often so entangled though, that it might be a painful process.  Sometimes the trimming can happen slowly, with other, loving seeds planted by other people.  Sometimes it happens quickly, with fire, something that rips to our roots and jars us from those habits.

Cleaning up the garden of our souls is never easy, though there is a Gardener who’s skilled and precise in His work so we are safe in His hands.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” ~Phillipians 4:13

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” ~Romans 12:2

But remember this–you had no control over the seeds that were planted in your heart, only on how you will shape your garden now.  Words are powerful.  They soothe hurts and cut deep.  Be aware of the words you sow.  You never know what you may be planting.

What seeds were planted in your heart by someone else?  Were they seeds that nourished your soul, or weeds that have held you down?  Do you fall into patterns based on those seeds?  If you were able to identify the source of some negative patterns, how did you uproot them?  I love hearing from you!

–I also have an announcement regarding Elemental Magic.  I want to apologize for the extended wait of its release.  It’s mid-October now, and while I had hoped to release it at the beginning of this month, there have been a few delays due to the cover art not being completed on time.  I’m very sorry that I couldn’t make the deadline I set for myself, but it is out of my control.  I hope to have news for you all soon, but I am still waiting on the cover art.–

Stories and Songs

It’s Move Me Monday again.  How about some music?

Mark Schultz is an amazing singer.  His songs tell powerful stories that always move me to tears.  This one’s been playing in my car recently.

 

If that song touched your heart, Rebecca Enzor posted another of his songs, “Letters From War,” on her blog if you’d like to check it out.

What’s the last song that moved you to tears because of its message?  What’s your favorite song that tells a story?  I love hearing from you!

~

For the rest of September, everyone who leaves a comment will be entered into a drawing to win a free e-book copy of Elemental Magic when it releases in October.  Five winners will be selected.

Aileen Donovan wants nothing more than recognition as an elemental scientist by her supernatural community.  What better way to do that than to solve a mystery involving a power-hungry alchemist, hallucinogenic coral, and a homicidal sea dragon?  The hardest part will be working with Coast Guard officer Colin Benson—until the tides turn, and Aileen realizes that love and duty may not have to be mutually exclusive.

The Freedom to Live, Cry, and Bleed

It’s Move-Me Monday.  I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say today.  Yesterday was the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 and the terrorist attacks that killed 2,977 people.  The 9th was the one-year anniversary of the San Bruno pipeline explosion in California that killed eight people and injured sixty.  It leveled thirty-five houses and left a crater 167-ft long, 26-ft wide, and 40-ft deep.

It’s in the face of tragedies such as these that people often turn their eyes toward heaven and ask, “Why?  How could You let this happen?”  Even the most devout in faith wrestles with this question.  There’s no easy answer, only the hard truth.  God, in His great love for us, gave us freewill so we could choose to love Him instead of having an army of programmed servants.  It is in that freewill that we choose to hurt each other.

God grieves as much as any of us do over the lives lost, destroyed, and changed forever.  He is like the parent who watches his child make bad decisions, hurting themselves and everyone around them.  At some point, the parent must learn to let go and let that child lead his own life.  It doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“But God is all-powerful.  He could have changed it if He wanted.”  Believe me, I’ve made those same protests.  How do we reconcile a loving God with the evil in our world?  It goes back to that freewill.  God lets us live our own lives.  He is faithful and dependable, which means He will not bend His promise in order to change what people choose to do.  He will not compromise our freedom by denying a few the same.

Yet He also promises to comfort us in those times of darkness.  “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trials and sorrows.  But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

I am secure in God’s love for me.  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39).

In the shadow of these tragedies, remember that Jesus walked the road to Calvary, beaten, bleeding, and broken.  He was too weak and wounded to carry the cross all the way himself.  And when he arrived, they nailed him to it where he could hang, suspended between breaths.  His arms would have dislocated, his lungs elevated into position for inhaling, meaning that he would have had to push up with the feet nailed to the cross in order to exhale before suffocating.  Only one of his disciples, his friends, stayed to watch.  The rest abandoned him.

So when you experience pain, grief, loss, it is no trite expression to say Jesus knows and understands what you’re going through.  He cried out to God as well, yet even then God did not step in to overrule man’s freewill.  I am secure in the belief that when all these earthly trials pass away from me, I will be welcomed into His waiting, loving arms.

What are you holding on to?

Beautiful Day

It’s Move Me Monday and I’ve got some inspiration for you.

In 2004, Westgate Church in San Jose, CA asked this question: if the church were to burn down tomorrow, would anyone miss us?  They did not like the answer.  So they instituted Beautiful Day.  Every year for one full week the church closes its doors and cancels services in order for the entire congregation to go out into the community and serve hands-on.

Every year there are multiple projects, from cleaning up schools to blood drives, from baking care packages for every fire station in the city to hosting a dance party for kids with autism.  Now the city of San Jose is very aware of Westgate’s presence in the community, and have begun asking for help on even more projects, such as cleaning up neighborhoods devastated by mass foreclosures and remodeling a local food bank to maximize productivity.  If the church burned down tomorrow, it would definitely be missed.

Acts of compassion are inspiring, but mass acts of compassion?  That is the kind of faith that moves mountains.  Are you serving?  Ministry doesn’t always mean donating money or walking up to strangers and asking them if they believe in God.  What are your individual talents?  Think you can’t possibly use them to make a difference?

My mom and I baked a few dozen mincemeat cookies, a dozen loaves of pumpkin and zucchini bread, and four tins of fudge for a local fire station last Christmas.  Did you know firemen have to buy and cook their own food?  Did you know they have a holiday party with their families (that they also have to buy and cook for)?  They were blown away and incredibly grateful to receive that care package.  Local heroes definitely deserve our thanks.

With a little creativity, you can figure out something that fits your talents and interests just right.  If you need another idea, check back with me on Wednesday when I tell you about another project I like to do.

What does “community service” mean to you?  Do you get pictures of cleaning up the sides of highways, or kids sentenced to work to make up for misdemeanors?  Or do you see fun, family activities putting hammers and paint to good use?  How do you serve your community?  I love hearing from you!