FEAR is a place

How do you know that God is speaking to you?
Would it really be crazy of you to say that you "heard" God speaking to you?
Would it make a difference if you say you "read" God instead of you "heard" God?

I read The Writer's blog everyday.
I have backtracked and read almost all of the 2012 posts.
So I decided to go to the archives and chose a year to start reading back.

I clicked January 2010 ~ planning to read from January to December 2010

The page opened to the January 30, 2010 blogpost: Weekends are for Growth

I see that the list goes backwards; the second in the list is January 29, 2010. ~Why Your Fears May Be The First Step In The Right Direction

I see I am in the wrong place if I am looking to start reading from January 1 onwards.

So I clicked on the back arrow~it gave me January 28. When You Are Afraid of Dying
Another click, January 27 Forgiven Much
Another click January 26 How to Handle Little People

This is really going backwards

I know now. Go back to the archives and click January 2010.
And then click the post for January 30 and instead of the back button, click on the forward button
>February 1, 2010. That's the way to go.
I should select December 2011 so when I click forward, it will give me January 1, 2010.

But before I could, I found myself looking at January 30, 2010 again. Weekends Are For Growth

I started to read:


 ‘Fear is like pain.

Pain is given as an indicator that something is going on. Pain says, “Hey, pay some attention here.” Step away from the flame. Get that splinter out. Cease what you are doing, the child is coming now. Go to the doctor and see what’s causing this.

Fear does the same.

Where fear pops up, makes itself known, there stands God, right behind me, right with me, saying,

    “Pay attention here! I am doing something with you. The timing of this fear is not by accident. Let’s have the conversation that needs to happen here. This is the topic. This is the time.”

Go there.”

Fear is a place of growth, a place where God “wants to do something with you.”


It struck me.
Is God speaking to me?

PAIN - that is what I have from the moment I wake up till before I sleep again.
Even through Dolcet and Lyrica - my pain medications.

"Pain is given as an indicator that something is going on".

Yes, something is going on.
I feel it.
It's the same as what went on ten years ago.

I had to have a spine surgery. Laminotomy.
The MRI showed disk herniation in my lumbar disks. L4 and L5
It got to an ugly place that I had to have the procedure done. And quick.

And then the next ten years was pain-free.
In between the years, I didn't have God in my life.

On the 9th year, I found my way back.

I heard about One Thousand Gifts.
Read bits and pieces of it.
I started writing verses for the Lord.
The seed of the desire to write One Thousand Verses was planted

It was good. I felt renewed.


And then, a stumbling block.
I retreated.
The one step I used to take towards God and the two steps backward that I take after each step~
 it became more than two steps.
Maybe 4, maybe 6...
until I found myself sliding all the way back to nowhere.

Slowly, I inched my way back.
I wrote verses again.
But didn't publish them.
I kept them in the drafts folder.

The familiar pain was back.
I went in for Physical Therapy
I didn't complete the treatment.
But the pain subsided. 
 I thought I was fine.


Before a big trial that was to come my way,
I started publishing the verses.

And then the news~ I need another surgery done. Hysterectomy.
It all went so fast. 
Recovered from it but even before the conclusion to it through a biopsy,
I started feeling disk herniation pains again.

Therapy becomes so much difficult because I am still recuperating from the hysterectomy.

So everyday, I face PAIN.
Worse than before.
Pain that wakes me up at odd hours.
Pain that makes me scream in the middle of the night


 "Pain says, “Hey, pay some attention here.”
And I listened.

I want to find God again.
Finding means looking for something somewhere.
Finding what I am looking for in a place.
But where? 

 
Fear is a place of growth, a place where God “wants to do something with you.”


THIS IS WHERE!!!!





Hebrews 11:6
 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. 


And I echo The Writer's paraphrase of this verse ~ “It’s impossible to please God unless I do things I’m afraid of.”
 
Fear. I have fear in my heart.
Fear of losing my life.
Between a pending biopsy result and a herniated disk, God, don't I have reason to fear?

Fear is a place of growth, a place where God wants to do something with you

In my fear, I sought this place.
This place where I could find my God and listen to Him speak to me.
Even if I feared what He might say to me.

And every day, I come to this place of my fear.
To find new answers to my questions of fear.
And God shows me passages....and stories.....and strength.....and hope.....

I am growing in this place of growth called fear.
Faith increases.
Faith that God will show me what He wants to do with me.

And faith that even if I lose my life to this PAIN
He is still my God.
I am still His beloved.

The Writer said it: "How can we give them what we are only slowly coming to hold: God’s purposes are not for me to understand His plans: His plan is for me to understand Who He is."

Fear is a place for my Faith to grow.
Fear is a place for me to understand who God is.