My Thanksgiving

 "...And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive..." (Matthew 21:22)


It was a journey.
My journey.

I have walked through this path before.
But I lost my way and took on a different path.

On and off.
I kept getting bumped out of the straight path.
Lured away from it by the busyness of the world.
With always a ready excuse...
a justification for not doing what I should do 
and a justification for doing what I should not do.


 "The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows" (Luke 21:47) 


I knew what God wants His children to do.
I knew what God asks of His children.

Obedience.


"But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. (Luke 12:47-48)

I cringe.
I have long accepted Christ in my life. 
I have long known about His love.
I have long known about His grace.
I have long known about His faithfulness.


I am one like the many others who have known Him and accepted Him 
but who fell out of the right path, anyway. God expects more from me.

I am one of them.

I am one of them who have approached the Throne of Grace many times before.
I am one of them who kept running away even after knowing and receiving God's grace
I am one of them who run not because God will not forgive but who run because they know God will ALWAYS forgive. 

We run because we are ashamed to ask AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN


But God is good. 
And His goodness is not because we are good. 
His goodness is because HE IS.

God gives Himself to all of HIS children 
He is infinite.

It is not as if God's grace and mercy will ever run out that if all His children will ask for it, only some will receive and some will not.

"An infinite God can give all of himself to each of his children. He does not distribute himself that each may have a part, but to each one, he gives all of himself as fully as if there were no others" (AW Tozer)

The trials we experience in our lives are like a nudge from God. 
They are His ways of gently pulling on the "leash" that connects us to Him.
We are indeed on the other end of a very long leash ~ so long that we could stray and depart from the path that God appointed us to tread on as if there was no leash at all.
But when we get too close to danger, He does pull on the leash and draw us near Him again.

We even resist His nudges.
But He remains patient with us. 
Because he wants to build our faith and He wants us to develop perseverance. 

 "Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience". (James 1:3)

James, a servant of God said:
  ^"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance" (James 1:2-3)

This is what my journey is all about.
The constant falling off the right path.
The straying on the other end of the leash.
The resistance to the nudges.
The constant approach to the Throne of Grace

Human nature.
When we experience trouble, we approach the Throne of Grace.
We seek and we find.
We ask and we receive. 
We knock and the door is opened to us.

And then we will tread the right path.
Until we find ourselves straying again.

My journey. 
My life.

I experienced the NUDGE very recently.
A trial. 
A life-threatening trial.


And this even happened while I was not totally going astray.
In fact, I have been reading His words. 
I have been writing verses from what I have read. 


But I was LUKEWARM.
I was neither here nor there. 
And I know that with matters of faith, there are no in-betweens.
And that partial obedience is DISOBEDIENCE.

Live the Word, not just Read the Word. 
That is the difficult part. 
This is where we need the memory of an elephant.
So that what we read will be retained 
and will constantly remind us to live what we read.
LIVE WHAT WE READ


God is faithful.
God is merciful.

Through this life-threatening trial, I approached the Throne of Grace once again.
 I did not get a quick answer.
And the wait was painful.
But God developed patience in me.
And He gave me His peace.

I did worry. That's human nature at work.
But I did not kick and scream.
I did not panic.

I sought His wisdom, hoping to see His will for me.
He taught me patience.
He taught me to persevere.
He taught me acceptance.

I prayed for courage.
I prayed for deliverance.
I prayed for Him to change my heart.
I prayed for fear to leave my heart.

"Fear NOT"  
 The phrase mentioned in the Bible 365 times. 

He taught me: 
Do not fear. Every. Day.

He gave me peace. 


 "...And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive..." (Matthew 21:22)

I asked in prayer for deliverance.
For the histopathological report to reveal negative for malignancy.

The report took a long time to arrive.
I was given a date to check. November 5.
The doctor told me to wait another day.
November 6.
And then wait another week.
November 12.

Two weeks.

While waiting, I basked in the Lord's peace. 
I found JOY in reading His Words and penned out poems
I created a new blog chronicling my faith journey ~
That in my brokenness, I found GRACE  

I searched my heart for fear ~ all I saw was a faded shadow of it. 
Deep in my heart, I felt that I have received what I asked in prayer.

I set aside my waiting and prepared to celebrate my son's birthday with a Bible Study group that we had started attending.
Excitement! I saw an area where God's work can be done.
Young boys. Teenage boys attending the Bible Study.
I pictured my two boys serving the Lord.
Growing their faith and ministering to other young boys.

November 19, my son's birthday.
Early morning, I felt a prompting to call my doctor's secretary to ask if the histopath report is already available.I have sent her a text message the past week and she never replied. I didn't push.
So I called her on November 19.
She said yes the result is available. 

Did I see a shadow of fear? 
Yes I did.
Facing the moment of truth, there was a rush of mixed emotions.
Fear was one of them.

It was still early and the doctor's office won't be open until four hours later. 
So I went on with the day's chores. If I could only take the mixed emotions in my hand, I would put them in the shelf~ away from my body.

I started cooking lunch.
The frying pan caught fire ~ about a foot high.
I was startled. 
And the first thing that I thought of doing was to blow the fire out like I was blowing out a birthday candle.
If that didn't work, what would I have done next?
But it worked.
Fire out.

Cooking done, I went back to my desk. 
Opened my Bible. Psalms 84:11
This verse kept coming up.
I meditated on it. 
And then wrote my poem # 57 Sun and Shield

I closed the Bible.
Shield. Sun. 
What is God's image?
I have been struggling to remove the image taught to me by the old religion. 
I thought~ burning bush, pillar of cloud by day, fire by night; tongues of fire.


FIRE!

I had a brief visual whiff of the presence of God. 

I knew!

Outside the doctor's office, I looked at other patients waiting. My doctor shares her office with another oncologist, so most of the patients in waiting are cancer patients. I saw a few of them wearing facial masks and bonnets. My heart sank. The reality of sickness that could bring death of the physical body gripped me. 
The line that divides the possibility that I have cancer or I don't is a thin line. 
I have asked God in prayer for my deliverance. I leave it to Him. His will be done. 

Two hours in waiting.
Finally I was called in.
I had images in my head about my doctor's facial expression.
And maybe a whiff of her voice delivering the news.

She was so casual holding several sheets of paper in her hand. 
"The biopsy report is  GOOD...." 
She placed the paper down on the table and pointed at specific words ~ I did not understand a thing.
I was praying in my head - a prayer of Thanks. 

The Bible Study on the night of November 19, 2012 is a testimony of God's faithfulness and grace. 
It is MY THANKSGIVING.



 "...And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive..." (Matthew 21:22)

In Jesus' name....

Amen.