Thankful Thursday

Again, I normally would wait until the end of the day so I could relate any fantabulous occurrences, but decided to post early anyway.

I haven't really posted at all since November's marathon of posting, and it's not that I've been lacking things to say, but time to say them! I have at least three different posts that are sitting in my head just waiting to be written, but today I'll just focus on thankfulness.

And it is just in this moment that I have no words to speak. Today I have been really confused/concerned about a few things, but particularly my physical status. Over the past year I have had a lot of problems with my back/neck, which included headaches and dizziness, also mild concussions and generally nothing fun.

In my small group, we've discussed praying for healing vs. praying for God to work through the pain. That's really paraphrased. I guess a better what to say it is that in both ways, praying for God's will to be done, but one way focusing on healing, and the other focusing on how God's going to use the pain. Hopefully that makes sense.

Well, people have prayed for my healing from my back/neck issues, and even last night I was prayed over. As they were praying I really just felt the frustrations build up in me over the whole situation and I'm just sick of dealing with it. But I felt better once they were done praying, and all was well. This morning I woke up in more pain than I've been in for a while. And this realization was so difficult to handle.

Here I was expecting God to do some miracle in me and heal me, and it didn't happen. But the more I thought about it and prayed about it, the more I realized that though I haven't seen too much of this, God could totally be using this time in my life to benefit His kingdom. He can be using this weakness in my life to remind to lean on Him and not myself.

The one circumstance that continually popped into my head was when I had my mild concussion last month. That was a week full of frustration for me. I wasn't able to dance. I felt dizzy a lot of the time. I felt pretty awful about pretty much everything. But in that, God gave me a blessing.



It was the Sunday after my concussion, and I still wasn't quite up to par. I decided to going dancing anyway, and just take it easy. Well, that translated to sitting out for at least an hour of dancing and just watching. But lo and behold, I wasn't the only one sitting out. Here next to me was someone I really didn't know at all, and yet, amazingly, we got along really well. We talked a lot that night, and began interacting on facebook and just chatting with each other. Then she decided to help me make lasagna, and so we got to know each other better then. Later on we had a tv night, and we didn't watch tv..we just talked..and talked..and talked some more.
I told you about some of this here but there's just so much more.

Every day we've grown closer, and become better friends.  One of her first comments to me was that she sees friends in three categories: Reason, Season, Lifetime. If you have a friend, you either have them for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime. I really liked that. Well, I'm happy to say that we've past the first two..she has definitely been my friend for a reason. I prayed for months to find a girl friend here, and God provided one. She's already been my friend for a season (though technically a short amount of time, it feels like I've known her for ages), and we're well on our way to "lifetime". =D

I hadn't thought about it before this morning of doubt and confusion..but I honestly don't know if I would have gotten to know her if not for that concussion of mine. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have reached out to me.. ;) And I wouldn't have realized what a difference she'd make in my life. Amazing how God works, huh?

So it is with that said that I can truly thank God for this time of physical pain and frustration, for He brought a huge blessing into my life because of it. I can't say that I particularly want my headaches and dizziness to stick around, but if God continues to bless me through it and using it for His glory, it'll totally be worth it!