Gut Checked

You guys can we talk about seasons for a minute. My goodness my little family has been going through some seasons. This morning I had a bonafide moment I was reading my morning devotional and got guy checked I mean legit gut checked. My husband and I have been married since 2012 and in a relationship since 2009. Whew that is a long time and still love him so much I am a very blessed woman to have a husband who takes his submission God seriously and makes my submission to him safe. That being said even the faith we share and the 13 years we have together didn’t prepare us adequately to handle the current season of our life. We talk a big game Matt and I we are always like oh we trust the LORD we gave him our yes we will do whatever he tells us without hesitation and we mean it we really do we just forget that it also means in the unknown in the hard to understand and the overwhelming.

Recently my husband who has been a Crohn’s warrior for many years had a change in his condition and a worsening of symptoms. His team of doctors explained to us there was a section of his sigmoid colon that needed to come out due to years of inflammation. We work to educate ourselves about the condition and know that a resection is part of the game at some point. Now to say we fully understood what that meant would be an exaggeration we knew that the sigmoid colon would need to be removed but we had no idea how extreme the surgery would turn out to be. On the day of his operation what was supposed to be a two hour operation turned into a six hour surgery that removed the entire colon and 8 lymph nodes. My husband was a very sick man we had no idea how bad it had gotten. His colon came out the size that the surgeon would have expected to come out of someone at least 200 pounds heavier than him they ended up making a large lower abdominal incision to remove the colon that was also covered in a 6 inch fat cap. This resulted in him having an ileostomy at least for now. So having an ostomy is something we knew was a possibility and though we thought ok we are prepared we just were not.

We are not any different than most people who are following GOD and trying to

make good choices. We make mistakes we mess up and more than that we get it wrong some of the time. We do seek GOD and humble ourselves in worship and be eager to learn even the hard lessons.

Well let me tell you doing that when your whole world is a mess can be hard. I was so overwhelmed with the learning curve of my whole heart laying in a hospital bed and having to learn to change an ostomy bag figure out a household that clearly depends on two incomes and is down to one. Well I didn’t do a good job. I let my character slip. I had some critics and I got offended I offered up a sacrifice to the idol of bitterness. I worshipped at the altar of un-forgiveness the good ole comfort seat of why us haven’t we gone through enough by this point. Boy did I get a wake up call today. My devotion this morning gut checked me so hard.

You see when King Nebuchadnezzar built and idol for the people to worship three Hebrew boys who didn’t know GOD like I do who likely had never felt GOD like I have knew something about themselves that they couldn’t’ be sure about when it came to GOD. They knew they had GOD who was able even if he chooses not to deliver them he could. I was so instantly ashamed when I recalled this story I had harbored bitterness at our journey I had been angry that we were called to this season I felt broken by the moment and not able to move past these horrible angry emotions for those who would choose some of my lowest moments of the last several months to find fault and point out blame. I was standing in indignation saying come on haven’t I gone through enough isn’t it someone else’s turn.

Instantly I began to think about the idols I had been worshipping in that moment and how I was scared and afraid and instead of finding my knees and posture of worship I was screaming out why me. Hey you I need a break calling out to GOD where are you in this moment. I began to weep and think about something my mentor told me many years ago that some days what you don’t know about God you have to know about you! I needed to remember whose I was and what kind of character I had worked so hard over the years to develop and change from worshipping entitlement, being dependent on a system, coming from the family of not enough to being exactly what God intended me to be. You see growing up I had come from a family of bad habits a family that if you wanted to speak death and worship at the altar of the world is against us you had a crowd to help you and friends to fire you up. I worked hard over the last several years of my life to change my ideations and remember that I had a GOD who can deliver but sometimes uses the storm to teach me because HE LOVES ME enough to correct me.

I can’t stress enough that if reading this blog does nothing else for you please take a look at your daily life. Identify the idols that you might be worshiping instead of kneeling in a posture of praise. I resolved this morning to have better attitude. I made a choice to worship the GOD who is GOOD all of the time. I can still tell GOD I feel alone but I won’t live in that place where I think we have had enough I won’t give the enemy the satisfaction of getting the better of my mind. You see if God were standing in front of me saying LaResa there is this lesson that I want to teach you in this really hard season. It is going to hurt and be scary and unpredictable and it might make you afraid but I promise I will walk with you through the whole thing and no matter what I wont leave you I would smile and say of course GOD I want to go through that season. I know that because nothing is more important to me there nothing in this world that I am more insatiably hungry for than the more of GOD I just want the more of GOD. I have been begging him for it for the last several years and isn’t that what we all do we say Oh GOD speak to me, teach me and help me to know you more. Then BAM! We get this season like getting slammed in the face with a folding chair and then we are like Whoa! Excuse me Mr. but do you remember those pages and pages of promises to me. No Just me! Well ok I do this I get so frustrated going through the thing that will give me exactly what I wanted exactly what I asked for. The more of GOD!

This week I decided that I would not surrender to the idol of “why me” I will not surrender to the attitude of bitterness. I will not surrender to the emotion of un-forgiveness today I will bow in worship to my GOD because he is a GOD who can, who is able even if he chooses not too. I resolved I would work harder to remember that some days what you don’t’ know about GOD you gotta know about you and the deity I am in a relationship with knows me fully and I will be worthy of the trust he has in me to meet every challenge of this season with a heart of worship and posture of praise. Today I am so grateful that we serve a good GOD. Today I challenge you to evaluate the response you produce in a hard season. It might surprise you to learn that what you thought would be the response might actually look a little differently in the practical storm. I know that I felt validated in my feelings and they were just plain wrong. If you have made this far in my blog thank you! I hope you get whatever GOD has for you in this season of your life! Also know you are being prayed for!