As I was doing my devotional one day last week, I came across a quote from a preacher that startled me to my core. He said, "Before God can use you significantly, you must be hurt deeply." At first, I was somewhat offended by the quote, but as I meditated on it, I began to see his intentions a bit more clearly.
I have been through a few storms lately and I have been searching for understanding. This hit me so hard. Until we have experienced some sort of trial in our life that has caused us to rely 110% on God, how can we truly testify about God's love and salvation? Until we have walked completely blinded but guided by God's loving hand and grace, how can we whole-heartedly testify about the righteousness of God's path?
I have always looked back on hard times and seen countless lessons that I've learned (and there are probably countless more that I can't even see). For example, I can look back at my sister's drug use and see how that removed even the slightest temptation from my mind for ever using drugs. My mom's breast cancer scare taught me to rely completely on God, to trust His will, and to pray for His interests and not my own.
This devotional changed my thinking from, "God I will praise you through this storm" to "God I will praise you FOR this storm." And here are a few reasons why:
1. Just because I deem a situation as "bad" does not mean that God does. He uses hard times as ways of building our character, our reliance on Him, our faith in others, our faith in ourselves.
2. Adversity comes from one of two places - God or the devil. Neither should be daunting and here is why. God places obstacles before us to build us up and to teach us important lessons about Him. If you are a child of God, from my understanding, Satan must have God's permission to tempt you and God is not going allow you to be tempted beyond what He knows you can handle. The bottom line here is, whether your adversity stems from God's love or Satan's undermining, as long as you focus on God through it, you will come out of it a much better person - physically, mentally, and spiritually - than you went in.
3. We don't know the big picture. In fact, we can't even come close to attempting to understand the big picture. As long as we believe that all things good come from God, then we can know that every single moment of our lives is fundamentally important to God's big picture. If it weren't, he would not have worked so hard to make us or focussed so much attention on loving us as completely as He does.
By no means am I suggesting that we should pray for bad to happen to us. What I am suggesting is that, rather than focusing completely on the bad of a situation, we should take a moment to step back and, no matter how much pain we are in, praise God for the opportunity for growth, wisdom, and a glimpse of Him. I have found that praising God FOR the storm (remembering how much good can come from something bad) will change our perspective and help us even more to praise Him THROUGH the storm.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Life Lessons from a Dog
Bill said something this weekend that really touched my heart both in its simplicity and in its profound truth. Before you can understand I need to tell you about a very special little guy in our lives.
Winston's cousin Teddi (Bill's sister Carol's dog) is a little pekingese mix that has lived such a sad but amazing life. People used to ask me all of the time how I could handle working at the Humane Society and stories like Teddi's, though few and far between, made every second of back-breaking, tear-jerking work well worth it.
Teddi came to our shelter one evening when I was working late as part of a cruelty case. His daddy was cooking meth in his house and was more concerned about his drugs than his dogs. Teddi and a hound friend of his were living in absolute squalor. There was no running water, no heat or air conditioning, and trash was everywhere. Teddi was found tied to a bed post with very little room to move. He was so badly infested with fleas that he had no hair. He was so skinny and malnourished he could barely stand. He had been walking in his own filth for what had probably been months. Not long after he made it to the shelter, I noticed that his right eye had come out of socket (it literally looked like it was bulging). I immediately called a local vet who agreed to perform the surgery on the eye if I could assist her with it since everyone had left her clinic for the day already.
So I took Teddi to the vet and helped with the surgery. Watching him so helpless on that table, I immediately fell in love. I knew if he went back to the shelter, his eye would most likely become infected and he would most definitely be euthanized. I couldn't let that happen. I decided to take Teddi home and nurse him back to health. He ended up loosing the eye as well as eyesight in his other eye, but other than that, it took him maybe a couple of months to get back in shape. His fur grew back and he gained weight.
The amazing thing about Teddi's story is his personality. Despite everything he went through, he is the most lovable dog you will ever meet. He will sit in your lap for hours at a time. All he really seems to want in life is a little attention (which basically means a lap to lay on from time to time), some food, and a squeeky toy. Also, he never once had an accident in the house - even though he was basically walking in his own feces for months.
We were talking about Teddi Saturday, when Bill looked over at me and said, "We humans should really learn to forgive like dogs." WOW! How great a statement! Think about it - Teddi was put through hell by a person which could have made him never trust another human for the rest of his life. However, he responded the opposite way - he LOVES humans. How many times have we failed to forgive someone for so much less? Think about your own pet. I know I've done things to make my animals not like me from time to time, but they always forgive me and usualyl almost immediately. I know this probably has to do with the biology of their brains, their lack of attention span, and their short-term memory, but I still think it's a lesson we all should consider.
Here's a picture of my little nephew Teddi:
Winston's cousin Teddi (Bill's sister Carol's dog) is a little pekingese mix that has lived such a sad but amazing life. People used to ask me all of the time how I could handle working at the Humane Society and stories like Teddi's, though few and far between, made every second of back-breaking, tear-jerking work well worth it.
Teddi came to our shelter one evening when I was working late as part of a cruelty case. His daddy was cooking meth in his house and was more concerned about his drugs than his dogs. Teddi and a hound friend of his were living in absolute squalor. There was no running water, no heat or air conditioning, and trash was everywhere. Teddi was found tied to a bed post with very little room to move. He was so badly infested with fleas that he had no hair. He was so skinny and malnourished he could barely stand. He had been walking in his own filth for what had probably been months. Not long after he made it to the shelter, I noticed that his right eye had come out of socket (it literally looked like it was bulging). I immediately called a local vet who agreed to perform the surgery on the eye if I could assist her with it since everyone had left her clinic for the day already.
So I took Teddi to the vet and helped with the surgery. Watching him so helpless on that table, I immediately fell in love. I knew if he went back to the shelter, his eye would most likely become infected and he would most definitely be euthanized. I couldn't let that happen. I decided to take Teddi home and nurse him back to health. He ended up loosing the eye as well as eyesight in his other eye, but other than that, it took him maybe a couple of months to get back in shape. His fur grew back and he gained weight.
The amazing thing about Teddi's story is his personality. Despite everything he went through, he is the most lovable dog you will ever meet. He will sit in your lap for hours at a time. All he really seems to want in life is a little attention (which basically means a lap to lay on from time to time), some food, and a squeeky toy. Also, he never once had an accident in the house - even though he was basically walking in his own feces for months.
We were talking about Teddi Saturday, when Bill looked over at me and said, "We humans should really learn to forgive like dogs." WOW! How great a statement! Think about it - Teddi was put through hell by a person which could have made him never trust another human for the rest of his life. However, he responded the opposite way - he LOVES humans. How many times have we failed to forgive someone for so much less? Think about your own pet. I know I've done things to make my animals not like me from time to time, but they always forgive me and usualyl almost immediately. I know this probably has to do with the biology of their brains, their lack of attention span, and their short-term memory, but I still think it's a lesson we all should consider.
Here's a picture of my little nephew Teddi:
Friday, January 9, 2009
Prayer Request
As some of you may know, I was diagnosed a year and a half ago with hypothyroidism, something I suspect I have been battling for close to five or more years. While people like to make you think that it's an easy condition to treat, it's not. As if having a chronic, life-long condition weren't daunting enough, sometimes it takes years to find the perfect dose of medication for a person. Even when the right dose is found, it only remains the right dose for a few months up to a few years before it has to be changed again - don't you love hormones?! My doctor warned me that my journey was not going to be easy because I have one of the most difficult to treat types (basically whatever the doctor does to treat me, my body turns around and does the opposite to reverse what good the treatment has done, so he has to stay one step ahead of my body in order to get me feeling better).
I just got the results of my most recent blood work and my thyroid levels were through the roof, and I am already on one of the lower doses of medication. Right now I am supposed to take an even lower dose and get rechecked in a few weeks. If my levels haven't dropped enough, the doctor wants to take me off of the medication completely until my levels are back in the low range and basically start back at the beginning.
I am scared about what will happen when my levels fall because this is the best I have felt in five years. If my levels fall too low, then I will be back at square one - weight gain, extreme fatigue, migraines, horrible forgetfulness, uterine cysts, etc. Please pray with me that this lower dose will work. I would be so happy to be able to stay on one dose of medicine for more than a month or two, but I have accepted the fact that that is not God's plan. I know that my problems are miniscule in comparison to those of so many others, which makes me reluctant to even mention them, but I also know that God is the ultimate Healer and He listens when we call on Him.
Thank you so much for your love and support!
I just got the results of my most recent blood work and my thyroid levels were through the roof, and I am already on one of the lower doses of medication. Right now I am supposed to take an even lower dose and get rechecked in a few weeks. If my levels haven't dropped enough, the doctor wants to take me off of the medication completely until my levels are back in the low range and basically start back at the beginning.
I am scared about what will happen when my levels fall because this is the best I have felt in five years. If my levels fall too low, then I will be back at square one - weight gain, extreme fatigue, migraines, horrible forgetfulness, uterine cysts, etc. Please pray with me that this lower dose will work. I would be so happy to be able to stay on one dose of medicine for more than a month or two, but I have accepted the fact that that is not God's plan. I know that my problems are miniscule in comparison to those of so many others, which makes me reluctant to even mention them, but I also know that God is the ultimate Healer and He listens when we call on Him.
Thank you so much for your love and support!
More Big Steps
I have finished my classes, established my committee, and been published. This week I took yet another major step forward in this whirlwind they refer to as graduate school - I scheduled my first committee meeting. Whohoo!! It really doesn't mean a whole lot, but I only plan to have maybe 4 meetings my entire time here (you have to have them every 6 months once you start them and I want to be out in 2 years), so one out of 4 being done is pretty good.
People (namely my mom) always ask me how graduate school works. I often fail to recognize that people who have never gone probably don't know, so I will tell you. Once you finish your 2nd year, you establish a graduate study committee consisting of 5-6 professors who will guide you through your dissertation (the 100+ page paper you write at the end). Usually they are experts from a mixture of fields that will help you in some unique way. You write a grant proposal about what you intend to do your dissertation research on. Your first committee meeting is where you present your proposal (aka research plan) to the committee. The committee then tells you everything you have planned incorrectly, how they would change it, how much additional work you need to do, etc. You go back and rewrite the proposal (sometimes just revise but most people have to completely start from scratch), making sure to incorporate everyone's suggestions to the best of your ability. Then you have what is called "qualifiers." This is where you present the final plan for your dissertation work to the committee. During this meeting, the committee members are able to ask you any question about anything in biology - whether it's even closely related to your project. If they deem that you are worthy, you pass qualifiers, which means you move into candidacy - in other words you are now a candidate for a PhD (I get kind of confused here because I feel like this means that nothing I did prior to this point was working on a PhD but I disagree). Once you are a candidate, you get a bunch of extra priviledges on campus but that's really about all. At this point you just slave away your dissertation work, meeting with your committee every 6 months to update them on your progress (meetings are a lot less stressful at this point from what I understand). You take about 3ish months to write your dissertation. Once it's complete and the grad school has looked at it to make sure you followed every asinine rule about margins, fonts, paper type, paper color, copy number, etc., you do a public and private defense. The public defense is basically an hour long presentation of the research which has consumed the past 4-7 years of your life. Oh, and every single person who is in anyway affiliated with UAB is invited to attend. The private defense is between you and your committee. It is at this point that they decide whether you should get your degree. If they say yes, you must do final revisions to your dissertation and submit it to the graduate school, where it will be bound and published in the library and you get to go to your hooding ceremony and graduation (I don't know why PhDs get hoods, but I think we ought to get something after years of hard work).
So that's basically graduate school in a nutshell. Any questions? :) All of that to say that I have made another huge step towards graduation. Now I am working feverishly on my proposal so I can get it ready before the big day - March 24th!!!!!
People (namely my mom) always ask me how graduate school works. I often fail to recognize that people who have never gone probably don't know, so I will tell you. Once you finish your 2nd year, you establish a graduate study committee consisting of 5-6 professors who will guide you through your dissertation (the 100+ page paper you write at the end). Usually they are experts from a mixture of fields that will help you in some unique way. You write a grant proposal about what you intend to do your dissertation research on. Your first committee meeting is where you present your proposal (aka research plan) to the committee. The committee then tells you everything you have planned incorrectly, how they would change it, how much additional work you need to do, etc. You go back and rewrite the proposal (sometimes just revise but most people have to completely start from scratch), making sure to incorporate everyone's suggestions to the best of your ability. Then you have what is called "qualifiers." This is where you present the final plan for your dissertation work to the committee. During this meeting, the committee members are able to ask you any question about anything in biology - whether it's even closely related to your project. If they deem that you are worthy, you pass qualifiers, which means you move into candidacy - in other words you are now a candidate for a PhD (I get kind of confused here because I feel like this means that nothing I did prior to this point was working on a PhD but I disagree). Once you are a candidate, you get a bunch of extra priviledges on campus but that's really about all. At this point you just slave away your dissertation work, meeting with your committee every 6 months to update them on your progress (meetings are a lot less stressful at this point from what I understand). You take about 3ish months to write your dissertation. Once it's complete and the grad school has looked at it to make sure you followed every asinine rule about margins, fonts, paper type, paper color, copy number, etc., you do a public and private defense. The public defense is basically an hour long presentation of the research which has consumed the past 4-7 years of your life. Oh, and every single person who is in anyway affiliated with UAB is invited to attend. The private defense is between you and your committee. It is at this point that they decide whether you should get your degree. If they say yes, you must do final revisions to your dissertation and submit it to the graduate school, where it will be bound and published in the library and you get to go to your hooding ceremony and graduation (I don't know why PhDs get hoods, but I think we ought to get something after years of hard work).
So that's basically graduate school in a nutshell. Any questions? :) All of that to say that I have made another huge step towards graduation. Now I am working feverishly on my proposal so I can get it ready before the big day - March 24th!!!!!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
A Lesson on Disappointment
I experienced what I considered a great disappointment today at work. In comparison to the inequities of our world, it was miniscule at best, but, to me, it was ENORMOUS. My response - not so great. I immediately found myself torn between wanting to cry and wanting to scream. I know you have all been there. Having almost completed Beth Moore's study "Breaking Free," I decided to take control of my thoughts before Satan does and uses them to bring me even more hurt. How do you do such a thing? You replace the lies with truth - God's Word. I did a quick internet search for Bible verses related to overcoming disappointment and Philippians 3:12-14 really moved my heart, so I thought I would share it.
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
I was so upset over something that, when looking at the big picture, had absolutely no value. The "prize" is not Earthly accolades but Heavenly treasures - winning souls for Christ, following His will, and serving Him. Never let disappointment interfere with your role as a child of God. I definitely did today - my attitude was definitely NOT Christlike. Also, you can dwell so much on a disappointment of the past that you miss out on future blessings.
What lesson did God teach me today? He taught me to refuse to dwell on yesterday's disappointments and to get up each morning knowing that God is a loving and forgiving God who has great things in store for me.
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
I was so upset over something that, when looking at the big picture, had absolutely no value. The "prize" is not Earthly accolades but Heavenly treasures - winning souls for Christ, following His will, and serving Him. Never let disappointment interfere with your role as a child of God. I definitely did today - my attitude was definitely NOT Christlike. Also, you can dwell so much on a disappointment of the past that you miss out on future blessings.
What lesson did God teach me today? He taught me to refuse to dwell on yesterday's disappointments and to get up each morning knowing that God is a loving and forgiving God who has great things in store for me.
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