war of my life

As the year comes to an end I am meditating on a lot of things.

God has been faithful to me. He has provided me with (first and most importantly) his love, a job, closure on my GED, friends to encourage me, family to challenge me and a boy who is becoming very special to my heart. I am now a member of Mars Hill church, I have enough photography jobs to keep me busy and am hearing more and more direction of where I should be going with my education. I really feel like he is bringing so many things closure as the year ends.

But I get really irritated by people who choose to love and praise God only when everything is going smoothly for them. God has promised us only one thing - salvation. Believe that Jesus paid the penalty for your sins, confess and repent of them and you will spend eternity in heaven with him. He never promised us an easy, hurdle-free, life.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-7

Notice that Paul doesn't tell us "Let your requests be made known to God and he will grant them all to you." He tell us that the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds. Basically, we WILL have trouble's, we WILL have pain, we WONT always get everything we want, but we will always have peace from God if we ask for it.

Paul tells us later, "I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

Pain is inevitable in this life, but suffering is optional.

I had such a hard time last night and this morning. I think of myself as being joyful 98% of the time. And not in the fake, peppy way, I'm just naturally optimistic... it takes a lot to get me in a "mood" these days. But last week when I started my new job I was standing for 8 hours a day four days in a row. I've always had problems with feet pain, but it has gotten so much worse. I couldn't walk by the end of my shift, I would just come home and lay in bed for hours to rest them. When I woke up on Friday morning I was so exhausted, my feet, calves and knees were hurting and swollen. I iced them for two hours that night before going to the Christmas Eve service. I spent the whole weekend trying to rest them, but they are still pretty swollen. Last night my mom said that she thought I should get tested for rheumatoid arthritis, and that's when the fear started. All the symptoms I read over pointed to me. If I don't take a muscle relaxer before I go to sleep I wake up with a throbbing headache and neck pain. Like, to the point where I can't even function. My left shoulder cracks and stiffens, and of course my feet, knee and leg pain when I stand for long periods of time.

All this to say... it was very hard for me to be joyful this morning. I'm afraid I'm going to go to the doctor and either 1.) be diagnosed with RA or some other horrible disease or 2.) They're not going to be able to tell what's wrong with me which will begin a long process of different tests and doctors which I have been down before...

When I told my pastor that I knew that God was taking care of me but I was still having a hard time being joyful, he told me that sometimes we are joyful, sometimes we are sinful and in despair, but sometimes we are fighting for joy. We know God is sovereign and all powerful and we are fighting to stay away from fear and anxiousness.

So today I am fighting. I'm trying not to get too ahead of myself before I see a doctor. I'm praying with FAITH for God to heal me. I'm asking for his comfort, his peace and his joy, and I know those are requests he will never deny me of.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, REJOICE."

We rejoice because we ALWAYS have salvation, and nothing can take that away. Everything else is just temporary.