I miss my hair. I miss recognizing "myself" when I look in the mirror. I miss washing my hair and fixing my hair. I know that it's temporary, but it's been almost three months since I've seen the "regular" me. And rather than seeing any hair growth, I am losing what eyebrows and eyelashes I still have had.
I miss being able to see without distortion. I didn't mention this yesterday - but if my eye doesn't improve and I need to have surgery, the actual surgery isn't a big deal - I'm sort of a pro at surgery after the last few years!! smile emoticon But the RECOVERY from eye surgery would be a challenge. It's a period of time (days to a couple of weeks) of being face down for the majority of the time, so the gas bubble that would be in my eye would stay on the hole that has formed, allowing it to heal. Not my idea of fun.
I am so thankful for all of the incredible things that God is doing in and around me - I can see so many things that He is teaching me, and I love Him and trust His plan. I have no doubt that He is with me, and I have never relied on Him more than I do right now.
That being said - I am thankful that He is okay with days when I feel sad because of the loss of my hair, and feel tired on this journey. In the middle of it all, He is right here with me, providing just what I need for the incredibly great days, and for the days when I feel like crying.
I read the perfect article by Kay Arthur tonight, and it speaks to the place where I find myself. I'm praying that it speaks to you, too. We can go through the hard times, knowing that we don't know the rest of the story, and that He is faithful to walk with us - and that's what we need to do. Keep walking, keep moving forward, confident in the knowledge that He is with us and loves us with a fierce and never-ending love.
Have you found that one of the hardest commands to obey, or at least to remember to obey, is 1 Thessalonians 5:18: "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you"?
Quite possibly you'd prefer to say that surely it must have been only for those living in Thessalonica almost 2,000 years ago, rather than for us today. You'd like to pass it off that way.
Have you ever stopped to think about why we want to rationalize this verse away? Why is it so hard to walk in continued obedience to this command?
It's hard — even a battle — because we don't have "the rest of the story"... We forget that with God, it's not the end of the story. "The rest of the story" is Christ likeness and the eternal weight of glory which eventually follows.
When we walk in obedience to this command and, no matter the situation, we give thanks in everything, and then we are walking in obedience of faith. We make a choice to walk in the Spirit rather than in the flesh, to live by faith rather than walk by sight. We know this is not the "end of the story." And knowing that, we choose not to react to the present situation according to our own reasoning, our own evaluation of the circumstance. Rather, we make the choice to look beyond what we see, beyond what we hoped for, to what God promises us.
It's all about choosing to look beyond the present to what's ahead!! And always choosing JOY.
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