God's Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day eve!

    I hope this week has been good for you. Mine has been eventful but good. I had to have a colonoscopy and an upper GI last Friday and the end result (sorry, pun wasn't intended) was, "If there were a magazine for colon's, your picture would be in it". Well, okay then. I thought that was pretty good, no polyps, no ulcers, no hernias and then to top it off, those of you have been around for a while knows I was diagnosed with UC in 2011 and had a bad time of it including multiple hospitalizations until 2018 when I learned to control it with diet, stress management and exercise. The result? Yesterday there was NO SIGNS OF UC!!! That is not even supposed to be possible but I did it. My friend Mike got me on the right path of what to take to heal and to learn the things I couldn't have if I want to keep it under control (Thank you so much, Mike, I am forever grateful for all your research and devotion to helping me!) .  

The doctor said that doesn't mean I will never have a flare again, because I could, my body is prone to it, but I have went so long with doing things right, there isn't all of these raw places in my colon. Quite seriously, the first time I had a colonoscopy while n a flare, my colon looked like one solid mass of rivers, streams and creeks, but unfortunately, they were cracks in my colon. God is good. All the time.

Anyway, on with the real topic at hand. We are approaching Valentine's Day. That day some love, some hate and some just wish it didn't exist. We tend to make Valentine's Day a big deal because of romantic love and it is, the basis of the whole story of why we celebrate,  but I want to point out that the greatest love of all is the love of God. We are God's Valentine.

We had our Valentine Banquet at church last night. I got to help with it and I had an activity where we all went around the room and told of a specific time that we felt God's love. It was an incredible experience for me, I hope it was for everyone there. So many things He has done for so many people. 

Of course, going to church in the same congregation I was born and raised in, many of the things mentioned that was God showing His love to us in times of tragedy, I knew. I was there, and I was so thankful that I was able to be there when others were going through bad times and very thankful that those people were there for us when we were going through bad times.

My mom mentioned something though that challenged me. The year after my dad died, Mom was in the hospital for over 2 months, she knew the number of days, I do not remember. I know we celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all in the hospital though. It was the second Halloween in 3 years I had a parent in the hospital. My dad had been, ironically, in the same ICU, 2 years before, just like my mom was that year. We ended up in Springfield shortly after that. For those of you not from around here, it is about 2 hours away. Mom mentioned that everyday there was someone there from our church. I was staying with an aunt so I could go to school, but that aunt wasn't able to bring me to Springfield when I had days off. If you get to thinking about it, there were several holidays in there. Someone would pick me up from school and take me to Springfield and then someone else would make sure I got back home in time to go to school the next day. 

I realized last night that the last generation of the church was better about that than I am. I mentioned last week that I was learning to be not so busy but I am also learning to do what matters and last night, standing and listening to not only the love God has for each of us, but the love that has been poured out through our families to each other, I was challenged. Challenged to check on people more, to visit more, to make sure needs are being met.

I love how God loves us enough to help us grow. Something as simple as a Valentine's Banquet gave me a new purpose for time well spent. 

Yesterday morning, we sang Lauren Daigle's You Say. I picked this because it is such a great love song and I admitted to the congregation that it is my go to song (it is also the ringtone on my phone so you have heard it if you are around me much).  I explained that being the IT coordinator at work is sometimes a very stressful job. It is my job to make sure the technology always works and everyone is able to work and well, we all know technology doesn't always work. I tend to take it personally when things go wrong, even when they are totally out of my control (and God JUST popped in my head that maybe I should let Him do His job and know that HE is the one in control), lol. Anyway, when I am having a good beating up on myself session, this is the song I hear in my head.

Okay, so one more thing that happened yesterday, one of my friends made the statement that something didn't go right and that was just her life. Funny enough, I had said the same thing earlier last week, I am waiting on something and I will share when I have an answer, but I had shared with several friends last week that I figured something would happen and I wouldn't get to do this thing just because that's how things are for me.  I seem to be pretty eager to jump on the, "nothing ever goes my way" bandwagon. One particular friend just point blank said, "That's funny because it seems to me like every time you turn around things are going your way." Well, truly, things probably do go my way more than I really think, it's just that we dwell on the ones that don't. I realize that is me taking for granted the many, many blessings God gives me.  And we really do need to remember, when God says no, it is because He knows the big picture. Easier said than done.

So, I am leaving you with this song. And just remember, when you don't belong, He says You belong to HIM.

Love you guys, Happy Valentine's Day.