Only He Can Change My Circumstances

When God asked me to share my testimony, I was so excited.  I remember sharing the news with my husband through tears of utter joy.  At that moment and the several it took for me to finally accept God’s will, I was filled with emotions of gratitude and relief.  Grateful that He had spoken to me and that He had asked me to be a vessel for any of His works.  Relief that I had a purpose, a reason for the pain I was going through.  While He specifically said I needed to testify while I was “knee-deep in it,” I think I somehow interpreted that to mean that if I accepted his challenge I would be instantly cured.  Uh, no.  Let me just say, maybe I should have read more closely to see there was NO fine print saying any such thing before signing on the dotted line.  Well, truth told, I would have said yes anyway.

Take yesterday.  I woke up so eager for my time to spend alone with Him where He would speak to my heart and advise me of what should end up on this page.  I wondered how it is that sometimes you get an epiphany, everything suddenly becomes so clear and you feel like you can ride that wave all the way to the rest of your wonderful life only to find yourself in desperate need of another massive moment of clarity just weeks later to pull you from a pit of despair.  What I got from that was this:  Say I cut my arm on the fence at the park.  It bleeds.  I clean it up and put on a bandage.  The next morning I take it off, it has stopped bleeding and there is a scab.  Just because you get a scab on a cut doesn’t mean it’s all healed up.  If I pull off that scab it may bleed again or get infected, because the healing has to happen deeper.  The things that trouble our souls are a lot like that and healing it may take longer than what we want or what we can see, but it’s better to experience all the layers of healing, less we end up with a scar.

By lunchtime I’d run across a message I wanted to look into further.  The message was about the convergence of several aspects of living God’s word.  It was 3 parts – hearing God’s words for you, understanding the truth of those words and acting on those words.  How any of them without the others doesn’t quite do it.  Sounds pleasant, huh?  Well, the part about the truth actually says “brutal honesty” and let me just tell you – it was brutal.  Here’s what I got:  No matter what I do, or how hard I work to spread God’s message and His love with other people, it doesn’t earn me any points, any favor or special exemption from whatever His plans are for my life on earth.  WHAT??  That’s right, it doesn’t mean I’ll be spared from disease, pain, sorrow, poverty or death. (UGH, I hate that word the most. It’s my trigger.  Just typing it here is like pulling my body across a bed of hot coals and broken glass.)  Oh, and He wasted no time setting me straight - this work He’s called me to do will not result in my salvation from those things that terrify me, nor will they free me from even just the fear of those things.  Rats!  There’s nothing I can do to change my circumstances??  So, what am I doing this for?  I must have passed 30 people in the Target as I fought back tears (not very well) and resisted the urge to ask them why they weren’t afraid like me?  Didn’t they know?  Had it not hit them that there’s nothing they can do about the inevitable?  I didn’t want to argue or be ungrateful, but still I reasoned - if I can’t save myself, save my own sanity then why-  And then it hit me like a giant bonk on the head with a nerf-like mallet.  I’d been asking, begging really, ‘What am I supposed to do?  What can I do?  What do you need me to do?’  His answer - it’s never been about me.  Only God can save me, only He can comfort me, only Him.  There is nothing I can do to change my circumstances.  But, I can pray to ask God to change them.  (I felt Him smile, “now you’re getting it.”)  I went on through the drive through for a quick bite across the street.  I greeted the attendant cheerfully with a smile and pleasant chit chat, not because I felt cheerful, but because that’s what I do.  And I thought to myself, ‘Why be nice then? Why follow rules then? Why do good deeds then?’  And for me, the answer is simple – because that’s who I’d like to be.  Not because it earns me any points, not because it will come back to me, not because I want anyone to think I’m so nice – just because why not?  You see, God is my Dad in heaven.  There’s nothing my kids could do to make me love them more.  If my daughter Kami gives me a hug tonight when I get in the door, I won’t love her more than I do right this second.  She doesn’t do it for something in return or to earn my love and admiration, she just does it because she wants to make me feel amazing (and it does).  So, I’ll do what my Dad in heaven asks just because I want Him to feel amazing – and He is.