Complete Control Freak

A lot of my friends, when reading the title of this blog, are going to laugh. The main reason is because they know I am pretty much a push over and can be persuaded into doing something, after I get over my own pride and stubborness of course. When it comes to my life, however, I am a control freak. I do not trust easily, and I am not sure if I would trust anyone with my life besides me. I think that shows the controlling side of me. So, not everyone would be willing to entrust their lives in the hands of someone else, right? I thought so too, until I finally got my mind off of people. I have been wondering lately...what would it be like to totally submit my life to God and let Him have complete control? But, that would cause me to have to give up control! That is definetely not safe, is it? James 4:13-15 says: "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" If our life isn't even that long, why would we want to have control for that short of a time when God is in control of the rest? If He can control before I was created, and then my eternal destiny, I am all for letting Him control me now.

Fear And Worry In Over-drive!

As of right now, I must admit that this week so far has been a challenging one. I have awaken pretty much every morning with feelings of not wanting to leave my room and not wanting to socialize. I have been crying a lot, and just feeling, well...depressed. Of course, I had to analyze this. What the heck is going on in my life that I feel like this? I came to several conclusions. The big reason (so I think) behind all of this is my fear and worry about this whole bladder and kidney thing. I am worried that this new medicine is not going to work as well as we hoped and I am going to either have to get surgery or the treatments. Both of these scare me. I remember how I felt after the last surgery, and I don't want that to happen again. The treatments do not sound any better. Sitting an hour a week at the hospital with tubes pumping in chemicals...I hate the sound of it. How can I be so sure that once I get these treatments that I won't have to continue them in the future? I surely thought that that was the only surgery that I was going to have to get...but look where I am now! The possibility of surgery again...I hate it! Its not even a big deal of a surgery! But, the pain is all the same to me. Second thing that came to my mind was just other fears I have about other stuff going on with me personally as well as friends. My thinking is that it can only get better from here? Or so, I hope!

My God Is Bigger Than This

Today was my 6 month check up with my urologist. I was really excited because I thought that things would be good and that I would maybe only have to see him once a year, not twice. The sad thing is that things are slowly getting worse. I am having more pain, and as many of you know I recently passed yet another kidney stone. I have upped both of my medications to four times a day instead of three. First thing that the doctor did was decided to put me on yet another medication. I feel like that is all that they do. My other options are surgery again and treatments, and I think we are leaning towards the treatment just because the surgery is something that we have done before. Today after my appointment I was really upset and discouraged knowing that this is all continuing and not getting better, but is a set back. It took me a while to realize that my God is so much bigger than this. To Him, this is nothing. There are so many other people who are suffering far worse than I. Tonight, I offered a piece of cake to a guy who is always at my work. I learned that he is living out of a shed and does not have work as of right now. My mom pointed out that that was probably the only thing that he had eaten all day. Who am I to complain? I am being taken care of, not only by my doctors, but my God is who is so much greater. I choose not to worry, because the love of my God will pull me through. He will be my comforter, my strength, and my rock.

There Is Some Good To This

As many of you already know, coming home for the summer wasn't exactly the greatest of things. I was worried because I was no longer in the "Huntington bubble", where I was basically protected from the world. I come out of that and into a home where the lifestyle is not that of Christ. There is one thing that I notice everytime that I come home, though. First off, it takes me a while to adjust to being home. At first, I am kind of depressed and pretty much angry at the fact that I am here, but then I slowly adjust and realize that this is my life. The thing that I notice is that my relationship with Christ becomes closer and close as I am home. I may have talked about this before, but when I am here, I realize that things are harder, and I cling to God more. When I am at school, I get caught up in everything and kind of neglect our relationship. In the past week, I have written more letters to God and spent more time in the bible than I did probably the entire last semester. By the way, I am not counting classwork that involved the bible in this. That is a requirement, not something I did for my relationship with Christ. I have also learned that me just praying doesn't really do much for me, because in the middle of praying, I get sidetracked and completely forget that I was even praying. So I have learned that I need to write my prayers down and that is a way that I can concentrate. Who knew that I would be learning stuff even when school is out??

Running Right Into The Battlefield

Most people avoid battlefields that they know they are going to get destroyed in. But, then there are those people who are like me and are naive enough to think that they are strong enough to fight off any temptation, even temptations that kill us everytime. Since being home, that is what it has been. A constant battlefield. I never realized how "sheltered" I was at school from these things. Of course, I don't think, I act first. I am starting to think if I even want to change. I know that I don't constantly mess up, but it has been getting worse lately and I don't really know why. I wish that I could figure that out. That is another issue...I have to analyze everything that is wrong in my life and won't settle until I completely understand. Maybe sometimes it is a good thing that I analyze everything, but do I seriously have to dwell on everything like I do? And, you would think that dwelling on it and contemplating it would cause me to understand more and to see the negative to all that I am doing! But, no! I continue to follow deception and I am worried that I am going to end up in the lifestyle that I had a couple of years ago, and I definetely do not want that. I know that it is something that I do not want, but how do I cause myself to hate it so much that it is not even appealing anymore? Sin is fun. Of course it is! It is how we handle sin that is the big issue. And, as of right now, I am not handling it well because of my stupidity and me being so naive to think that I am strong when I am so very, very weak!

Too Tired To Fight

I have been trying so hard to fight for myself lately. I will use everything and anything (except for God) to try and work my problems out. Lately, the decisions that I have been making are not so great. I have formed relationships that are not best for me, and when I am down and sad I turn to those relationships. I have found replacements for God in almost every situation that I have had in the past couple weeks. I am so tired of doing this. Emotionally, I am exhausted. Every night I go to bed hoping and praying for the heaviness of everything that I have done to go away. Every morning I wake up discouraged by the fact that I have to go through yet another day of dealing with the mistakes that I have made. Of course I went to God and asked for forgiveness, but the pain and memories of what I did are still there. There will be consequences to my mistakes, as there is for every mistake that we make, and I have come to an understanding of them and how I am going to deal with them exactly. Friday, I go home. I know that home is more of a battlefield than any other place. This is going to be a tough summer, I already know it. Finals are done with. I thank God for giving me enough strength and energy to complete them and to be able to prepare myself enough. Right now, I surrender. He was right, through Christ we can do all things...I have learned that through myself alone, I cannot.

For I Am A Sinner

Lately, I have had an issue with getting frustrated with others and this has caused me to talk about people to others. It has been frustrating because I do not want to hurt others by talking about them, and I want them to be my friends. I wasn't sure what the issue was of why I started doing this. I had to figure out what it was that others were doing that was frustrating me the most. I realized that most people that I come into contact with have an attitude where they are really self centered. I know that this was something that I struggled with in middle school and partly through high school, so I can partly understand the struggle. I get frustrated now because I thought that things would be different now that we are all in college. Especially since we are at a Christian college, and where Christ should be the center of our lives, not ourselves. Then I had a thought, why should I be getting frustrated with these people and basically judging them, when I too have faults about myself? Am I not sinning when I am getting anger towards these people as well as turning my anger into me going and talking about them? In high school in youth group, my youth pastor told us this neat story of a monk who prayed unceasingly to God everyday "Lord Jesus have mercy on me for I am a sinner." I decided to apply this to my situation. Anytime that I get frustrated with others, I pray this, and almost immediately, the tension is gone and I can start to see them somewhat like Christ see's them.