My Life Was an Idol

I can’t die.

The Lord needs me.

I’m not finished here.

I have Lyme disease; I can very well die from it. These are lies I have comforted myself with to keep my fear abated.

I don’t want to die! I rather like living. Life is beautiful no matter how much pain I’m in. But that’s where I've erred. I've derailed my spiritual train. It crashed and was burning.

I made an idol out of my life. My physical life. Not how I’m living it, or what I’m doing with it (and not doing)  I have held onto it with such a tight grasp that I wouldn't even let the Lord touch it. If I had it in my hands and I was in control of it then I felt secure. Nothing would happen to it without my permission.

I left my Lord. I stopped loving the Lord the way He commands (Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind. Matt. 22:37)
I loved my life more than the Life Giver.

My life had become an idol.

Throughout the entirety of my sickness (since last June) I knew the Lord wanted me to give Him my life. I managed to keep Him quiet in that matter by not listening. I opened up my heart to Him, except that one area.

That wasn't enough for Him. God desires to be Lord of everything, not just portions of our lives.

As time would have it, I distanced myself from the Lord. I didn't want to give Him my life. Didn't I have the right to keep anything? (the answer to that is no) I was afraid of what would happen, and in case you’re wondering, I wasn't exactly all that happy.

Half of my family stayed home from church this past Sunday. (due to my current state of health, I’m unable to attend church) We listened to a sermon on loving God.
Five minutes in and I’m convicted. Half-way through I knew what I needed to do. By the end of it I had resolved to return to my First Love.
Dad asked what I had gotten out of the sermon, and as I began telling them the tears started flowing. 

Tears of shame and repentance.

With the change of the season, the Lord brought a season of change to my heart. My life is not mine at all. The Lord died so that I could have life. I can show my love and give my life back to Him. 

I trust the Lord completely. Whatever happens, I am in His hands.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind. Matthew 22:37

Is there an idol in your life? Have you left your First Love? 

In the Kitchen with the Master Chef

Life is a lot like being in a kitchen where God is the Master Chef. He has all these dishes being prepared, ingredients out that at first glance one wonders what in the world they will be used for. What is their

purpose? Who wants to put apple cider vinegar in their salsa anyway? How would that improve the flavor? It smells horrific.

I am the little child who comes in and wants to put my fingers in the pie and mess it all up. Here is what I think should happen. Never mind what the recipe says, we don’t need the baking soda or the salt in chocolate chip cookies, what is wrong with you? I want to put in more sugar, it will make it deliciously

sweet, right? How about some milk? And we don’t need the raw eggs. Gross. Hey! What are you doing? Why are you beating all of those ingredients together? You are putting in the chocolate chips, the best part of this weird mess, in last? Why not put those in first?
Without any guidance, I could make a huge mess of the Master Chef's work. A good cook can always fix a mistake.

That’s how it is with God in real life. He is the Master Chef and I am the little child. He has the recipe of my life and He knows what is on the ingredients list. He has the perfect idea of what He wants me to turn into. He knows how much salt, and raw eggs I need in order to make me stick together under harsh circumstances, and the salt that is for flavoring. Oftentimes I am lost as to what He is doing. I have no idea what is going on. I don’t know what this trial’s purpose is. Building faith and trust in Him, certainly, but what else? Why the waiting? Why the silence? Why the rough mixing up? What was that for? Did I do something wrong? I am your child, right? Why would You do this to me? No, I don’t want to learn patience. That process never seems to end!

I have to trust that the Master Chef knows what He is doing and doesn’t need my help with the order of things. I have to be willing to keep my hands out of things and not stick my fingers in the unmixed cookie dough and exclaim with a puzzled look on my face, “What in the world is this and what are You doing?!”
The Lord is in control of my life. I have found that when my life seems to be spinning out of control, the Lord has it all under His control. Just like the cookie dough enduring the hand mixer digging its blades in there, and mixing it all up and seemingly out of control. The Master Chef knows that this is necessary.

He knows that in order for His masterpiece to be beautiful and
delicious it has to undergo a harsh process; including at least eighteen minutes in three hundred degree heat. He understands that this is vital in baking chocolate chip cookies. And for them to come out looking luscious and soft

I have to trust my Lord and Savior with the recipe of my life. If I am not willing to undergo the sufferings and hardships of the Christian life I will never take the next step further into having a beautiful heart and soul.

Have you submitted your life to the hand of the Savior? Are you undergoing difficult circumstances and doubting the Lord? 

Where My Life Is: Part 1

Life is crazy. That's just the simple truth. Twists and turns arriving that are so unexpected. It's scary sometimes. Never knowing what exactly is around the bend. But at other times that's what makes life exciting. Very exciting. Sometimes. It's fun to read about it in novels; "Oh, wow, that's so amazing! Her life just got turned upside down." Does anyone ever wish that it would happen to them? I did, I admit, once or twice. And well, I got my wish. I've always been told to be careful what I wished or prayed for. Lesson learned.

My life was running good for a couple of months. I settled into being a piano teacher to sixteen students. Absolutely loved it. Was planning a recital with my two older sisters and their students. And then my health started to go downhill. Funny how that happens to me a lot. I get a good start running and then crash! There goes my life for a couple of months. This is the third  year in a row that this has happened to me. I have no idea why. So don't ask me.
Over the summer I had been having bad wrist pain, and getting random fevers that would run for two days. No one else would get them. Weird, right? In September my heart started doing strange things. It would randomly speed up for about an hour or so, then it would go back to normal. Over the next month my joints began hurting. One day it would be this, the next day it would be that joint. I would get horrid leg pains frequently. In October, my sister MacKenzie came to mom and told her that she had been having some of these same symptoms. All except the heart issues. We honestly thought we had Lyme disease. Mom put us on supplements that would fight infection, and also help us with our joint pain. I didn't get better. I got worse. I was still teaching, but it got harder to hide my pain. I'm not one to show weakness. I like to think of myself as invincible....boy did that idea go out the window!
  As the month of November approached my symptoms kept getting worse. I couldn't walk up a set of stairs without feeling seriously winded. Not normal for me. I got weak easily, and required a ton of sleep. Again, not normal for me. I love seeing how little sleep I can get by on. It's a challenge.
 Wednesday, November the sixth my heart rate went way up after I had been doing applesauce. I couldn't do anything. I felt totally out of breath, and I shook horribly. I sort of freaked out, but didn't really say much about it, besides that I couldn't do much.
The next day, while at a Bright Light's meeting I felt weird again. I told mom that I was going to go out and get in the van. When I arrived there, I had no strength to actually step up into the van. I felt weird, like never before. I asked MacKenzie for help, and asked her to get Emily. She could immediately tell that something was wrong with me. Usually when I'm in pain I tend to not want to be around people. Emily put her arms around me and went to lift me into the van. I told her, "Emily I feel like I'm going to faint. I'm go-" And I slipped to the ground in a faint, in her arms. She freaked out and yelled for mom. Stephen, a friend who was still there with us along with his brother, picked me up and put me in the front seat. I kept slipping in and out of consciousness.
When I pass out I can still hear what's going on around me, for the most part, but I go totally limp, and it's too much for me to open my eyes, or speak.
Mom called dad and they agreed that she should take me to the ER. We dropped the kids off at the house, and dad put me in the car. I kept passing out in his arms and freaked him out too. My poor dad...
The only thing that could be found out at the ER was that I had Tachycardia. They told mom that she should call and get an appointment scheduled with my doctor. Which is exactly what she did.

More to come in Part 2


Blessings,
Haley