Strong

Just recently I was listening to a few heart-felt prayer requests from some girl friends of mine.  Each worry, situation, problem, or stress was something similar to what we had experienced the past year.  Worry for the future health of a child.  Prayer for immense anxiety/stress.  Prayer for good medical test results....etc. 

On the drive home from that meeting, I realized something surprising.  I realized how strong I am.  We have survived so much more than I could have ever imagined living through....countless near-death experiences; panic-induced meltdowns; medical test, after medical test, after medical test (and not all good news either); and even more than that all in a very short period of time.

This group of girl friends has been getting together to read What Happens When Women Say Yes To God.  I haven't read very far....but a few things have stuck out that I wanted to share.

As you can gather from the title, the book is about being sensitive to God's prompting and acting on it.  But what if a situation is given to you without God's prompting or without His 'asking'?  It's absurd to think that God needed my opinion, but what if He had said, "Sarah, I need you to take this extremely premature child.  It's not going to be fun, but I feel like you need to have him.  Will you take him?"  To be honest, I'm glad He didn't ask, because I know my answer would have been about as unholy as they come.

Nevertheless, here I am.  When I said that I was thinking about how strong I am....it's really not me. "The beauty of doing things beyond ourselves is that we will know it was by God's doing and His alone.  And to Him we give all the glory."  I certainly do give God the glory for Samuel's outcome.  But have I given Him the glory for pulling ME through as well?

It's easy to focus on my many failures with Samuel.  I can seriously name them to you (but I'll not do that now..)  When I start to think about them, I say, "God, someone else could do this job FAR better than I could and with FAR more grace.  I'm just muddling my way through sometimes!  If I'm not good at this then WHY am I having to do it?"  But I have to believe that He knew I would have the right combination of whatever was needed to be the best mom for Samuel. "God has called me, therefore I am equipped." 

There you go....random thoughts and insights into my mind as I try to gain wisdom and understanding.  I hope you gleaned something from this disorganized and pictureless post!