It's been a long journey, but I have been blessed. Walking with Jesus I have no regrets,
He's been so good to me I must confess
The way has been long, but I'm blessed!
On September 15, 2009, a girl went to sleep around 5:30 in the afternoon. She was woken up by her friend who had called her a little after 6. Because the girl had a slurred speech, her friend asked her where she was and what she was doing. The girl said "I'm on the floor!" Whenever they hung up the phone the girl got up and walked downstairs, all the while she had a migraine headache! So, she decided to lay back down again. Eventually her friend came home from work and asked her some questions and they chit chatted about the day. Two hours after she called the girl, her friend and her friend's mom took her to the hospital, which turned out that the girl had had a seizure.
Ok, the girl in the story is me and the friend is my best friend and roommate, Leslie.
For the past 6 months, I have not been able to drive, which has been really difficult. The first 3 months went by so slow, but the last 3 went by really fast. I look back on everything that has happened in the past 6 months and I am just amazed! After I had that seizure I got the bill, which was expensive (of course everything was expensive since I had no job). And so I was like how in the world am I going to pay that off. I also needed to get healthcare, so Leslie took me to the clinic which is where I get all my medicine and healthcare, so that was the first blessing. The next blessing was a couple months later when the hospital people called about my bill. They were going to put me on a payment plan. (During the mean time I had applied for charity at the hospital.) Well, I call the lady, because I was kind of upset that I kept getting billed for the first amount. I called and I had to tell the lady my account number and all that jazz. I told her my number and name and she goes "ma'am that account has been taken care of". I said "what?!" She went on to say that charity had paid IN FULL everything that I owed from my ER visit on the 15th. All I could do at that point was praise the Lord! And I did over the phone,which I am sure the lady was wondering if I had overdosed that day! Other blessings were things like the clinic set me up with Health Access, which through them I was able to get an EEG and a MRI done for free. God has been so good to me. I cannot complain; He's just been good, more than good.
All during this time I have been doing a Bible study about believing God. I learned a 5 statement pledge of faith: believing God is who He says He is, believing God can do what He says He can do, believing I am who God says I am, believing I can do all things through Christ, and believing God's Word is alive and active in me. I am only 2 weeks away from finishing it (at least in the book). I have learned so many awesome truths. Here are a few, some of them I am still in the process of learning.
Early on in the study (soon after I had my seizure), I was fooling around with some leaves at the church. We needed some to decorate our Sunday School classroom. Well, I got a bunch of them and I didn't think anything about it for a day, maybe two until I woke up with a horrible red rash starting on my forehead going down the side of my face ending up on my ear. Yuck! But I think it helped me with facing my insecurity fear. I always try to look nice and make sure my make up is just right. And then I get poison oak on half of my face. It was not fun! But, I still went to church. I still did stuff, even though I felt like I was dying on the inside. It went away after lots of cremes!!
Another lesson I learned was from week 4, which was about believing who God says I am. For a while in the fall I struggled with not accepting God's forgiveness. I knew I was saved, I just didn't think God forgave me of my past sins and failures. Who I am in Christ is amazingly expressed in Ephesians 1. Isaiah 43:25 says that God doesn't remembers our past sins anymore! In fact when I looked up the words in the Hebrew, it actually means that God destroys our sins; He wipes them out; He exterminates or obliterates them! That's pretty amazing!
One of the other lessons I learned was in week 5 which was all about believing I can do all things through Christ. I thought for a long time that I could only bring shame to the Lord's name. I learned from the harlot Rahab. To me, that would be on my top 5 list of dirty sins! But, God used her to save the spies and then eventually she was in the line of Christ. How amazing that God saved her out of that lifestyle and brought her to a new place where eventually she became a great great great grandmother of Jesus Christ. Pretty cool! God can use anyone from any background if they are willing to believe God!
A more recent lesson would be one of remembering. Week 7 was all about remembering. I learned about how God remembers. It seems as if when God remembers, He is about to act. Right now, I still don't have a job, but I know that God hasn't forgotten about me. I must keep believing that God hasn't forgotten my situation and that He is about to act.
I also have a tendency to remember either useless things or past failures. The lesson dealt with what Christ did for us on the cross. Hebrews 10 was the passage. To sum it up would be that Christ died on the cross one time. He only had to offer Himself once because He is the perfect sacrifice for sin. Now, I don't have to keep saying "I'm sorry" over and over again, because He has already forgiven me the first time (ie: remember what Isaiah 43:25 says). Of course there are things I just won't be able to forget, but I must not let them have power over them.
These are just a few lessons I have learned, but I do believe God is working in me and I know I still have lots to learn! These past 6 months have been a journey, one of which I don't have a desire to do again. I am thankful for everything God has done in me the last 6 months and I am excited about the future months to see what God will do!
