I Stand in Awe

GOD IS AMAZING! Just wanted to start a blog that way. :)

Seriously, though, He is. I have no explanations for most of the things that happen in my life - good or bad. I just know the peace and strength God gives to go through bad times and the humility and amazement during the good times.

God has seen me through many things. Sometimes I thought I felt like He wasn't there, like He wasn't providing a way through a rough patch. But, in the end, I realized I never ASKED for His help. Yes, He very much wants to help His children and guide them and give them great things....but He also wants us to ask. I can't just assume that God is going to tell me what to do with my money or my time if I'm not even asking Him for direction. If I'm doing it all my own way, God may not intervene. It's going to Him FIRST that is going to get me where I need to be or in the direction I need to go.

And it's the great times that I need to remember Him as well. I know I do a lot of asking and pleading and begging God to help me when I'm down, but I know I need to make sure I'm thanking and praising Him once I'm through those times or over those obstacles. If I'm not willing to give Him the credit that is most certainly due Him, how could I even go and ask Him for MORE help? I am not dumb enough, though, to say I always acknowledge Him. I do forget and I do get cocky and I let myself have credit that I don't deserve. It's a slippery slope.

Now, to segue into another topic. I have a cousin who has 5 month old twins. One of the twins, Miranda, was diagnosed a few weeks ago with AML (leukemia) and has been through one round of chemotherapy so far (10 treatments in that round). She had a spinal tap this week that showed no leukemia cells in her spinal fluid, so that is really good news! PRAISE GOD! She is not yet in the clear, but that is a positive note in a painful couple of weeks for her. The poor baby has had numerous blood and platelet transfusions, spinal taps, tubes down her throat, needles in her arm, all kinds of morphine and medications, and many many x-rays and exams. I cannot imagine the hurt she has right now, and she isn't old enough to tell her mother where it hurts or how bad. She can only cry. My heart really breaks thinking about it. I cannot hold back tears.

My first reaction, were I not a Christian, would humanly have been "how could God do something like this to someone so little?" And I can definitely see how people ask that and then go on to say there can't be a God, God doesn't care, etc. It does, in our simple human eyes, seem awful that a tiny baby would have to suffer. All I have been able to bring myself to say is this:
"Only God knows the reason, and only God is in control of it all." And as many times as I say that to myself, I am still crying when I think of her. I know God can see the big picture and He knows just exactly who He is trying to reach by letting this play out as it has. I may never know who was changed for the better spiritually by this whole situation, but I have to trust God to take care of it all. Seems like a cop-out to some....saying that God is in control.....but I truly believe it. I have no crazy story to tell of how I came back from the brink of death or saw a light or whatever, but I know of many daily things that God has shown me through people and situations that can only lead me to conclude that it is not ME that is in control of anything but GOD who is in control of EVERYTHING.

I have given birth to 3 beautiful babies. I cannot for one second believe that the moment a baby takes its first breath or the incredibly traumatic situation at the moment of birth is just a random act of nature. The cosmos didn't just happen to make the cells divide and develop as they did for my children. There's no accident in nature, no randomness, no evolution. God has designed everything we can see, smell, taste, hear and feel. He has given it purpose, a name, a sensation. He brings together all the right elements for a baby to develop inside a woman and for it to be born. There is just too much there for me to logically believe it's all left to chance. The intricate makeup of everything in world just begs for a Creator, someone who specifically designed each thing. Gave us all just the right amount of cells to look and act as we do. Gave woman specific bodies to handle the birth of a child. Gave men specific bodies to help create the child. Gave humans the right formulas mentally to be able to love and have compassion and have the ability to make decisions, like whether or not we will choose to believe in the One True God.

Shame on us for not seeing God in everything. How humbling it is to see that we are not in charge, not in control of our lives, but rather that God is. And praise God for what He is doing in our lives and for His willingness to worth through our stubbornness to show us just how Great He is!