Releasing anger...

I’ve been angry at God. I’ve had 3 seizures in 3 days and they last a long time and they hurt my body and they make me angry. I hurt and I am so tired and I honestly get angry about that. I wonder when it’s going to stop and I get angry. But I can only stay angry for so long before God starts to work on me. He starts to work in my heart and show me things. This morning He showed me how to stop being angry – at least for now. He started to show me how to hand things over to Him AGAIN – it’s a lesson He has to teach me repeatedly. He showed me a few things and then He told me to type. That’s when He really starts to show me things – when I write. So I just started typing and I ended up with what’s written below:

I’m never going to be in control of my life. Even those people I envy, the ones that have lives that look perfect…they aren’t in control of their lives either. They just haven’t had to be hit on the head with something that makes them face that fact. They haven’t gone where I’ve gone – that place where you give up every concept you had about being in control of your life. I had to realize that I’m not even in control of the next few minutes. As soon as I start to think I am – a seizure could hit. The kind that knock me around and show me I’m not in control of my own body or even my muscles. I’m a puppet when those happen. I just have to decide that in my life I want to be God’s puppet and not a puppet pulled by the wants and desires of the outside world. I see people’s vacation pictures and I wish I could plan a vacation, or just be on a vacation. But my life is where God wants it to be for now. I’ve had a lot of good vacations in the past, but now is not my vacation time. Right now is a time of intense pain and suffering that God has been and will be using to refine me into that person He wants me to become. I don’t know why some people get an “easy life” as compared to others. I don’t know why God allows some people to be refined by walking through fire after fire while some people live easily and simply. Maybe I needed this kind of definite breaking to ever learn how I need to react to how God will work in my life. I don’t surrender easily and I continue to have a hard time even surrendering to God. I know it’s the best way to go through life but I have such a strong desire to control my life, my environment, my world that I have to talk to God daily, to have deep talks with Him just in order to hand over that day to Him. I need breaking. I want to stop being broken though. I’m tired of breaking. I’m tired of going through the process of being broken repeatedly. The sad fact is that I’ve had to be broken repeatedly to even understand one tenth of what God is trying to teach me daily. So I don’t get that “easy life” but if that is God’s plan I should allow myself to find a way to accept it and be okay with it.

I’m never going to understand HOW God works or WHY He does things or allows certain things to happen. That’s not my job. I’m not the one who has to understand the how’s and why’s of all of that. It’s up to God who is much more qualified than me to make those decisions. I may marvel at what transpires in other people’s lives because it seems they never had to fight and claw for what they have. But at the same time I may also marvel at how real God has made Himself to me. How He is surrounding me with His presence even when I doubt His plans for me, even when in all honesty, I don’t deserve to feel His presence. I feel anger welling up inside me when I compare my current situation to those of my friends. I feel anger at Him for putting me in this place, for allowing me to endure such pain, both physical and mental. But you can only stay mad for so long before He makes you pull yourself up. If you try to ignore Him it doesn’t work. At least it doesn’t work for me. I am allowed a few weeks at a time to be upset and angry and then I feel Him pulling at me. He’s tugging at me to step back and see that I’m not the only one in the world who’s hurting and in pain. I’m one of so many people who haven’t been dealt the “easy life”. I have to step back to let that anger go and it feels like a weight lifting off of me when I let it go. Sometimes I get to feel that way for days – to feel light while I go through the pain and heartache of my current path. I love those days when even the seizures can’t knock me down mentally or spiritually. However, I also know I cannot beat myself up when I do get knocked down. It’s part of the process. It’s the fact that I get back up and cling to God when I rise again that matters. It’s knowing that sometimes the devil uses so many small things to burrow inside our brains and change our outlook on our lives. I’m tired of the devil worming his way into my brain. I have to tell God that and push all those bad thoughts and feelings away from me.

I am not perfect nor will I ever be perfect. That’s okay because neither will anyone else. If I sit back and try to compare my life with those who seemingly got dealt “easy lives” I have to realize that they aren’t perfect either. I also have to realize that I don’t really know what goes on in their lives. I don’t know what burrows into their brains and makes them sad or angry at times. God keeps telling me to “let it go”. I have to let go of the envy I have of those people who seem outwardly perfect because they aren’t. Even if I know for sure that their current situation is better than mine, it doesn’t mean their lives are any more important than mine. It doesn’t mean that they don’t fight their own battles with control issues and giving things over to God. Just because I’m going through such a rough time right now that doesn’t give me the right to feel like I corner the market on hardships. We all have our own versions of rough times. No one goes through this life untouched by pain or heartache and God doesn’t place more importance on one person’s pain than He does someone else’s. He feels all our pain and He tries to see us through those times if we allow Him in to do so.

So, I’ve been mad about my situation. I’ve told God I was mad at Him for allowing my situation to continue on this seemingly endless path of pain and physical hardships with no real end in sight. He let me be mad for awhile and then He came and made it clear that I only get to feel sorry for myself for so long before I have to step back and hand all of that over to Him. He doesn’t want just part of it – He wants ALL of it. I have to hand over the envy, the pain, the heartache, the disappointment, the control issues, the anger, and the frustration of it all. I have to give all of those to Him because if I don’t, they will eat me alive. I’m so thankful that He tells me these things. I’m so thankful that He makes His presence so palpable, so amazingly real, in my life. I’m so thankful that He blessed me with a wonderful husband who prays daily for us to be able to accept whatever God’s will is for our lives. I’m so thankful that God gave me a husband who does nothing but support me through all of this. I’m so thankful that God allowed me to have a family that goes through all of this with me and prays for me all the time. This is what Paul meant about prayer. To pray with THANKSGIVING and I’m thanking God for all the wonderful things He has already done in my life instead of allowing myself to wallow in how bad my current situation is. God goes before me in all things and I know this because He has shown me how very true that statement is so many times in my own life. So I may not know where my life is headed. I may not know what other physical trials I must endure. I may not know how to handle what comes next or how to accept my total lack of control of everything. But I know that God goes before me. If I can just focus on that then perhaps I could stop comparing my life to other people’s lives. He goes before me so no matter how bad things get, He is ahead of me clearing out the path of my life.

So, that's what I typed while I listened to God. That's what I think He wanted me to see today. I wish I saw things this clearly everyday but I can't. That's not how it works. I have to just hand it over and see what happens next. We're making some changes in my treatment because my symptoms have gotten a lot worse since I stopped treatment and we feel that changes must be made. Pray that we make the right decisions and that God leads us clearly to the best decision for my health right now.

It's only fitting that I end with the verses that hit me so hard as I typed this:

"Rejoice in the Lords always, I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgivng, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-7

Thank you to all the people who still read this and who have traveled this road with me for over a year. I've found that many people are with you in the beginning, but as time passes people want to hear good news! They want to see God working fast! They get tired of hearing about set backs and hurdles. So, I am grateful to everyone who has prayed me through those set backs and hurdles and who, like me, wants to see God's healing power fast, but understands that God works in His own time and not ours. I am truly blessed to have so many good people praying for me and I know how important all your prayers are. They are precious to me.

Much love-
K