HEALING IS IN HIS HANDS

No matter where I am healing is in His hands.
I know first hand that healing is in fact in His hands. Even when the times when the rain is coming down so hard that I can no longer see anything in front of me. If there is anything that I have learned in my time this semester is this: Storms end eventually. Even big storms that seem never ending eventually end, but the damage from the storm is felt long after, and that is normal. Storms of life are the same way. When something drastic happens to you is when the self pity begins to set in, and the wall begins to build up, and we typically begin to push others away. I am just as guilty of this as anyone. This semester was one of the hardest times of my life. If you were to look at me and really look, you would begin to ask yourself... “who is Maggie close to?” Honestly y’all, I am ashamed to admit that no one was. I had successfully pushed every single person who cared about me away. They may have believed that they were close to me, but I had my guard up. I was holding all of them at least an arm distance away. I didn’t want anyone to see me in my “pot hole” as I call it. The most random song sent that wall crashing down in late October.
“No mountain or valley, gain or loss we know can keep us from Your love…No matter where I am, healing is in Your hands…”

The truth is, sometimes this song is my favorite song, but other times it is a hard song to listen to, because sometimes I get into the self pity, “if healing is in your hands, then why is my suffering still happening? Do you not see me? Can you not tell that I am in the darkest pit of my life? I’m hanging on by a string. Are there anymore curveballs that you want to throw my way? Honestly, I can’t take one more thing..” mentality. And I am sure that I am not the only person who gets into that kind of rut. When the unthinkable started happening and my life was yet again impacted by death. 3 people died too young. At least, that’s what I thought. (yes, I know God’s timing is perfect, so no death is too soon, but in my mind…all of them died too young.) Right after that huge hit, I had to end a friendship that was very important to me. (It was way too important to me, but that is another topic for another day) I was faced with the realization that I, as independent as I am, had become dependent, crippled even, by a person. My entire mood became based on a person’s mood and I realized that that had to stop. Long story short: October sucked, I couldn’t wait for it to be over, and I was dependent on God more than ever. I was clinging on to him for dear life. (I think this constitutes as a storm if you ask me….) Isaiah 40:28-31 became more true than I ever expected it to be in my life.

"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even the youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint. ISAIAH 40:28-31

When I get to the point where I am sitting in my room, having my self pity time I am reminded tha God not only sees what I’m going through…he is there with me. He’s not promising that everything will be okay, but he is promising that he will give me the strength to keep going…even when I don’t think I will ever have the strength and in that I realized that He knows exactly what he is doing
Even though I realize that healing is not God’s will for my grandfather’s emphysema, I do know that He has blessed me with at least 10 years longer with Pa than the doctors ever anticipated. It is a difficult pill to swallow, knowing that he is never going to be okay again…and that he is only going to slowly get worse and get closer and closer to death’s doorstep. The Lord has changed my heart in all of this. I am shocked, but my prayer is now just to stop his suffering and let him be at peace. It’s hard to watch him be in so much pain, and to watch him not be able to breathe. It’s always been hard, and it’s always been hard to see him do everything on his own, because my grandmother died 15 years ago. My prayer is that my mom and her sisters are able to see His face in all of this. Mainly, my mom’s younger sister, because I fear that she isn’t destined to spend eternity with the Lord in heaven. Which scares me, because I love her so much. My prayer is that my mom doesn’t have as difficult of a time going through all of this as she did when my grandmother died. And my prayer is that my grandfather can just dance with Jesus now. I love him so much, and I’ll miss him so much, but I just don’t think it’s not fair to pray for his healing and prolonged death. How selfish would that be? I mean…he could be in the presence of majesty healed for all eternity…and I’m busy praying that I can have him here, in pain, in a broken world for longer? That’s SO selfish! I know I’d much rather be in the presence of the one true God than to be down here in this world that is so full of death, destruction, and sorrow. There is no doubt in my mind that I will see Pa again someday when I enter the gates of heaven, so I should just pray for safe travel into the arms of Jesus. I just need to pray for my families healing, and my healing in understanding that he really is happy, because he’s with the Lord and Grannyma, waiting for all of us to join him. I just love him so much. But he’s going to be in the presence of the Almighty God, my father. Forever. How awesome is that?
So I end where I started….

“No matter where I am, healing is in Your hands…”

Maggie