…. BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE
Psalms 30:5…. “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
Everyone has problems. Its part of life. Bad things do happen to good people. How we react to those things is what determines how our lives are effected by them.
Some highlights of a few (physical) things Ive personally walked through include:
1. Born with rare kidney disease – 2 surgeries by age 1.5 yrs old
2. Fell off a Tennessee Walker @ age 6, split my head open front to back
3. Uncountable minor & serious accidents on bikes, minibikes, & motorcycles
4. Physical & mental abuse throughout childhood, my last beating was at age 19
5. 3 fender-benders / 2 serious car accidents
6. Cut tongue in half & knocked out front teeth
7. Lost hearing in left ear
8. Cancer – 6 surgeries to date, and stage 4 endometriosis
9. Lost nearly every material possession I owned
10. Multiple layers of cysts covering organs
11. Scar tissue and cysts grown / twisted into kidney & bowel
12. Spine damage; herniated disks, degenerative disk disease, severe curvature
13. Broken and dislocated elbow
14. 8 bi-lateral meniscus tears around knee cap
15. Broken both ankles – at same time
As you can see, Im no stranger to pain. But, the important part – the part I want you to realize – is that God did NOT do these things to me. The devil did! And if it werent for the grace, mercy, and love that God has for me – I would had died a long, long time ago!
Jeremiah 29:11… “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Instead of allowing me to die at infancy due to a kidney disease that no surgeon had ever operated on before nor knew how to fix, God gave a specialist, from Spain, the knowledge and willingness to come to America to attempt a never-before-done procedure… On his dime… and God, working through this man, restored my life! Instead of allowing me to give up and allow disease to take over my body, He taught me how to live in faith, how to trust IN Him, and how to stand on His Word to be able to receive His healing power. By allowing me to loose nearly all I had, He taught me what its like to do without, which has given me such a deep desire to help others and the ability to bless them in every way I can. Instead of letting me go around ashamed of my own smile, He gave me a way to have a smile that I dont have to be ashamed of. Instead of continuing to allow me to “run off at the mouth”, He taught me to be silent and then gave me the capability to speak His Words. Instead of remaining deaf, He opened up my ear so I could listen to Him, rather than half-ways hear what He was saying. He also taught me what it means to “be still and know that He IS God.” Instead of allowing me to be consumed by the experience of what it was to be kicked, stomped on, thrown around, spit on, cursed, and beaten to the point of having blood pouring down my back and legs from being “marched home” by the aid of a switch off of a thorn bush (covered in 2″ thorns) – God gave me the ability to realize and understand that His Son, Jesus, was born for the very reason of willfully enduring such immensely worse beatings – because He loves me! Instead of God allowing me to feel hatred all my life for the man who beat this child for so many years, He showed me how He forgave others for doing far worse to Him and taught me how to not only forgive, but to truly love the person who did those things to me… then further taught me that since I could forgive and love that person, that forgiving and loving others is not only easy, but a release of joy within my own self to do so.
WAKE UP.... 