When God Says "No!"

There is nothing more difficult than watching God say "No" to a prayer, even as it is being prayed. Yet, that is exactly what God chose to do with my prayer during our corporate worship service this morning!

 
With hope in hand, I decided to try to attend church again today. And, things were really good when I first arrived! My breathing remained normal and the dizziness stayed away.

Unfortunately, I could feel things quickly start to change within about 10 minutes, and as they did I began crying out to the Lord to please, please stop everything that was happening so I could stay and be part of the service. And He chose to say . . .

So once again, I had to leave the sanctuary and go lay on a couch in order to catch my breath, before I could leaving the building.

O Father, why? Why are You allowing me to continually get sick at church and have to leave? It's CHURCH! It's being part of the body of Christ! You say you have "plans to give me hope and a future," but I just don't understand what that means. It doesn't make any sense, and it hurts so, so much.

I have spent a great deal of time meditating on the lyrics from the Plumb song, Need You Now.  Over and over and over again, I keep praying the refrain of this song ...

How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this?"
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh, I need You,
God I need You now.

Yesterday I read this verse in Psalm 123:

Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
So our eyes look to the Lord our God,
Until He is gracious to us.
~ Psalm 123:2

O Father, please be gracious to me now . . .
✞

Perfect Storm

During a conversation with one of the pastors at my church yesterday regarding the possibility of having the elders pray for me (regarding the issues with my health), he told me that if I don't feel comfortable sharing everything that is going on, I can just tell them that I am "having some problems with my health right now that are really rocking my world and I would appreciate your prayers."

To say that my world is being "rocked" is an understatement. In fact, as I was driving home thinking about our conversation, I came to the realization that a better term to use regarding my health would be "perfect storm."

According to Wikipedia, the definition of a "perfect storm" is: "an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically."

In addition to the fact that I regularly struggle with phantom pains in my groin ...

A virus in my gut is now keeping me from digesting the food I eat, so most of my days are spent with the kind of stomach cramps you get from food poisoning ...

An allergy to wheat has created an auto-immune disorder causing my body to attack itself in 8 or 9 different places, including my heart, my liver, my brain and my joints, so much of my day is also spent in the kind of pain that feels like a continuous muscle cramp ...

The elimination of wheat from my diet is now causing me to go through the kind of detox that most alcoholics or heroin addicts go through ...

I am constantly dizzy ...

A new allergy has just developed to the building materials used by my church which is now giving me breathing problems while I am in the building, causing me to become dizzy and to start hyperventilating within the first 20 minutes of our Sunday morning worship service ...

And that is only part of what is happening inside of my body!

I would like to say that I am content in this situation and in one sense I believe that I am. While my doctor wanted to give me something for "anxiety," the truth of the matter is that I am not anxious about the situation. Rather, I just don't feel well!

In fact, can I be honest with you? While my brain seems to work just fine (although I am sure there are those who would debate that fact!!!), most mornings I wake up feeling like I have been hit by a mack truck!

As I was reading my Bible this morning, I came across these two verses in Psalm 31:

You are my God ...
My times are in Your hands ...
~Psalm 31:14, 15

And, that is the truth I must speak to myself on a daily basis as I walk this road!

Even though God took me through the most intense trial of my life between 2009 and 2012, shaking my faith to its very foundation and causing me to question everything I believed about God and His sovereignty, He is once again choosing to allow me to go through another intense trial.

The first one was mental. This one is physical ... and I barely have enough strength to make it through each day.

Right now I only have enough energy to keep my spiritual life on track; work on my business (in order to have an income) and focus on taking care of my health. That's it. There is nothing left to give to anyone else.

As anyone who is single (or who lives alone somewhere without any kind of support system of family or close friends) knows, being sick is difficult when you're alone!

But the truth of the matter is this: even though I feel alone as I struggle through this, I cannot trust my feelings because God promises otherwise!

 
Do not fear, for I am with you; 
Do not be afraid, for I am your God. 
I will strengthen you; 
I will help you; 
I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand.
~ Isaiah 41:10

And, it is my job to take Him at His word!
✞

Today's Prayer ...

O Father, please help me! I feel so sick right now ...

In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice out of His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.
~ Psalm18:6

Please hear my cry right now and help me to continue to surrender to Your will, even during this overwhelming struggle with my health ...
✞ 

Be Still My Soul

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
~ von Schlegel

Usually I am not a big fan of the "old" hymns because they never seem to speak to me.  But God, in His infinite wisdom, grace and sovereignty, led our worship pastor to include this one in our service on Sunday morning.

What a blessing it was to read these words and to speak the truth of them to my heart -- especially as I work through this situation with my health.

Honestly, I have shed many tears over the last three weeks and especially last week, after receiving the final round of test results. But, I also know this truth ...

Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.
~ Psalm 30:5 (NLT)

That does not mean that I am not still scared of what lies ahead. But yesterday afternoon God was also gracious enough to allow me to cross paths with a fellow believer from my church who has also struggled with her own extremely serious health issues. And as she prayed for me she asked God to give me the ability to be content in my moments of suffering, knowing that I am exactly where He wants me to be.

Although I have been praying that God would be glorified in my situation, I had forgotten to ask Him to help me be content. Such an important reminder from the Apostle Paul:

In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.
~ Philippians 4:12

So that is my prayer tonight: that right now, in this very moment, God will help me be content in my circumstances, knowing that joy will come in the morning. Maybe not tomorrow morning. Maybe not even the morning after that! But ...

Joy. Will. Come.
✞

Not My Own

Isn't it funny how, when you choose to honestly surrender your life to God, asking Him to do whatever He wills, He always takes you up on your offer?

That being said, what I was not expecting to discover in doing so (after two blood draws last month involving 100+ different blood panels) is the fact that I truly am in a life and death struggle ... for my own life! Yet, if I believe what I say I believe, the truth of the matter is this: my life is not my own! It belongs to my Heavenly Father to do with as He chooses.

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
~ Acts 20:24

So as I process the truth of my situation, I only have one prayer: that I will do the things the doctors have told me I must do for myself, to improve my health (Lord willing), while leaving the final  results up to Him -- even if they do not turn out the way I want them to in the end.
✞ 

Today's Prayer ...

Oh Father,
You know my heart. You know the choice before me. You know how tired I am from lack of sleep and that I have no fight left in me. You also know the path you want me to take. Please reveal it to me. And if it is not the one I want, please fill me with the desire to do Your will; no matter how I may feel. Thank you for being my shelter in this storm and a God who hears -- and answers -- my prayers.

✞

"Discouraged people don't need critics. They hurt enough already. They don't need someone to pile on more guilt or distress. They need encouragement. They need a refuge. A place to hide and to find healing."
-- Chuck Swindoll

Psalm 121

A couple of years ago one of the pastors at my church taught me Donald Whitney's system of reading through the Psalms. It goes like this:

You start reading the date you are on (i.e. today is March 1st = Psalm 1) and then, if nothing in what you read "speaks" to you (my terminology), you add 30 to get to the next Psalm (i.e. Psalm 31) and you just keep adding 30 until you run out of Psalms!  

When I do this exercise, however, I actually read through all five Psalms, asking God to show me what He wants me to learn, remember, etc. Sometimes verses from each of the five Psalms jump out at me. Sometimes only one or two verses catch my attention. In any case, my reading for today included: Psalm 1, 31, 61, 91 and 121. 

Ah, yes ... Psalm 121 ... the Psalm which God so richly used to open the floodgates of my life in 2009. 

Here are the verses which opened those gates:

The Lord watches over you --
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm --
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
~ Psalm 121:5-7 (NIV)

It has been a little more than 3½ years since my world came crashing down all around me and those three little verses above provided the straw that broke the camel's back ... And oh, how the camel's back did break!

They say that you should "be careful what you wish for" because God might just grant your wish. 

One of my biggest wishes was my desire to leave California and move to Montana. That was a wish He graciously granted and everything fell into place for me to move here in three days. I now know that it was all part of the healing journey for which He was preparing me to take.

Let me explain ...

Before reading Psalm 121, I remember praying that God would strip me of everything that "wasn't me," so I could begin to get back to the bare bones of who I really was. You see, after spending 15+ years in the entertainment industry, I realized that I had lost so much of who I was that the time had come for me to find me again. I just wasn't prepared for how God had planned on helping me do that ...

It was in the middle of a dance class at my acting school when I first became aware of the fact that I had been raped. That realization promptly caused me to go running out the door and throw up!

Little did I know it at the time, but seven months later, at that same school, I would find myself in the girls' bathroom with a different man who was there to rape me. I didn't know that was his intention. Rather I only knew there was someone else in the bathroom with me and I knew that something was wrong with that other person. Thinking it was another girl, I almost asked "her" if she was okay, but now I truly believe it was the Holy Spirit who protected me and prevented me from doing so.

Instead, I washed my hands and walked out the door. It was only by the grace of God that I ran into my girlfriend, V, as I was leaving the bathroom, because this man was right on my heels trying to grab me. (I did not even hear him come out of the bathroom stall, let alone realize he was right behind me.) However, as soon as he saw V, he said something to the effect of "whoops, wrong bathroom," and ducked into the mens' room. 

Unfortunately, right after I went back into my classroom, he went back into the ladies' room and attacked V. Fortunately, she was able to fight him off and get away, but not before this guy pulled a gun on her, and one of our school administrators, and the three of us later found ourselves at the Pasadena Police Station looking through books of mugshots!

That incident shook me to the core of my being and once we were done at the police station, my friend Daniel drove me home because I was shaking so much I literally could not drive. He stayed with me until my roommate (and best friend at the time) got home, and when she found out what happened, her only response was "Oh, is that all?" after which she promptly went into her bedroom and shut the door. Unfortunately, our friendship went down hill after that.

Two years later I acquired a stalker. And, as things progressively got worse with this guy, the Burbank Police Department politely informed me that until he actually did something to me, there was nothing they could do!

Sadly, I have since come to realize that those three incidents were only the tip of the iceberg for what has taken place in my life. They became the starting point for me to begin shutting down from life, causing me to withdraw from people and to become extremely protective of my personal space and (in many ways) my privacy. They also became the catalyst for the collapse of my relationship with God, which only deepened after I read Psalm 121, as well as the tool that He has used to truly strip me bare before Him! (Remember? Be careful what you pray for ...)

However, what goes down must come up ... except, as one of my pastors so graciously pointed out, in the case of gravity!

This week I finished reading a book entitled Living Fearlessly, by Sheila Walsh. In it, Sheila talks about the fact that since God already knows everything about us, we should (basically) not be afraid to "come clean" with Him about our deepest fears because they will certainly not come as any surprise to Him. As I thought through her comment, and as I came to the realization of what my deepest fears really were, I realized that one of my deepest fears is being sexually assaulted again and not having the strength to fight back. 

You see, I know that if I had been the one attacked in the bathroom, instead of V, I would not have had the strength to fight back and get away. And that realization terrifies me because I am afraid that should something like that happen to me again, where I would be the one attacked, I would just freeze and not fight back. 

And you know what, that may very well happen! However, whether it does or it doesn't, I also know that this is now the truth for my life:

But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord,
I say, "You are my God." 
My times are in Your hand ...
~ Psalm 31:14-15

Every single moment of every single day of my life (and yours) is in God's hands. He controls it all! And, He also controls what happens to me -- both good and bad. I may like it. I may not.

BUT ...  

Our God is in the heavens;
He does whatever He pleases.
~ Psalm 115:3

What happens in my life is HIS CALL, not mine!

But I did not really realize that fact while I was trying to work through my "issues" with verse 7 of Psalm 121 ... The Lord will keep you from all harm, until I read that same verse in the NASB, which states it this way ... He will keep your soul.

And that's when it hit me ... Yes, my body was violated; many times and in many ways, and it may even be violated again sometime in the future. However, my soul belongs to God alone and that is all that matters!

Through Sheila's book, God gently revealed to me that the time has come for me to start Living Fearlessly. And, while I am not exactly sure what that means or what that looks like right now, I am confident that in His perfect time, and through His infinite wisdom and grace, He will reveal it to me! 

In the meantime,  I want to share a song with you written by my dear friend, and beloved sister in Christ, Marsha Skidmore. Marsha sings at most of the Billy Graham crusades and I was just thinking that her song, Where Does My Help Come From, is the perfect ending to this blog.

Love you, Marsha!  Thank you for sharing your beautiful voice with the world ... xoxo
✞