Thursday, May 26, 2011

May 26, 2011 (Day 7) Choose to see God

I am completely guilty so many times of going about my everyday life without recognizing how much my life is not in my control. I pay my bills, I maintain my car, I feed my family, and I certainly plan my way through life. My so called planed schedule for my life creates a sense of comfort and a sense of control. I feel as if I know what bills should be coming, about how many loads of laundry I need to do each week, how much spaghetti to boil (although my husband always laughs at the abundance of leftover pasta), and so forth.  Chris brings home the bacon and I make sure our life isn’t pure chaos. Together we make a good team. The only problem with this is that it creates a false sense of control.
 Yes, I physically do a lot of things in our life, but nothing proves your lack of control as much as shocking and devastating news. Sometimes you feel so ignorant that it takes something so huge in your life to prove the simple point that you never had control nor will you ever.  As much as I want to, I wish I could change our circumstances. My greatest desire is that my children would grow up healthy, happy, and feeling absolutely loved. However, circumstances in life don’t always allow these things to happen and that’s when you come to the reality that there is nothing that you can do to change anything. So what do you do when you feel completely helpless?

 You begin to change your perspective; you have to in order to survive.  You get up and choose to start seeing God in everything. Nothing is a coincidence, nothing is lucky, and nothing is too small to call the provisional hand of a caring Savior. I often see God in the greatest joys of my life and I miss out on the fact that God provides for me in every moment. Yesterday I handed in my keys to our old apartment and while I was at the office a representative for the Round Rock Express was there dropping off some things at the office. He gave me 6 free reserved tickets to any game this season. This was a direct answer to prayer since just the day before that I had been pleading to God to give my family activities and adventures even though we are going to be putting every penny away for Jackson. Call it coincidence, I call it provision from a God that hears me and is faithful to walk along side of us.

 This morning I brought in all my closing paperwork and pictures of the condition of our house to our tax assessment office. They estimated a tax value for our house based on the location, square footage, and similar properties. However, since ours was a foreclosure we paid way under the appraised value because there was so much work to be done. As I waited to protest my value I prayed that God would show mercy to us and go before me. The appraiser not only dropped the value to our purchase price, but even gave us a value below that because of the pictures that I provided her. That means they dropped the tax assessed value by a little over $25,000 making a huge difference in the amount of taxes owed this year. She was so incredibly kind. Lucky? I say blessed by the hand of a generous God that is showing me that nothing in life is by my own good doing.

God is everywhere and even during circumstances where we don’t understand why He does the things He does, we see Him moving in ways that we cannot explain. I choose to live my life as a reflection of His grace because I have nothing to show on my own.  I am weak but with His strength I can handle anything that life may bring. God is paving the way for us to live by extreme faith.

Jackson, God is using you to build a woman of faith out of me. Crazy how that works…. A baby considered by doctors not worth the fight is drastically changing my family forever. Yes, my boy you are worth every second of the fight!

2 comments:

  1. Oh my dear friend,

    I miss you so much! I cry everytime I read your updates! You amaze me! I don't know why this is happening to you guys, but I love watching your faith grow! You encourage me and spure me on through your openess and honesty and amazing attitude through it all! I know being there wouldn't change anything - but I would give anything to be in Texas with you now - I really really wish I could give you a GIANT Hug!!!! Praying and fighting with you from a world away!

    I LOVE YOU!!!!

    Jess

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  2. We are praying for God's healing touch on your little man. We love you guys. Amy Mangum

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