Putting garbage in it’s place

Recently, our trash company changed the day they pick up our trash, and the containers we put it in.  My family recycles, and up until now, we have had 2 small recycling containers that have never been large enough for the amount of recycling we have.  Every week, we would always have an overflow of items that wouldn’t fit into the recycling containers…until now.  We now have a LARGE rolling cart that hold everything!  There is never a need to find another place for the garbage!  I love it!  Why am I telling you this?  Well, you see…garbage in itself isn't bad. Garbage dumped in the wrong place - that's bad.
Sometimes there's way too much garbage that gets dumped where it should never go - in the hearing, in the lives of people who have no business getting the “overflow” of our garbage as we complain about our lives.
One big problem with our complaining is that it focuses on what's frustrating us and it forgets the big picture. When we just look at the irritations and the frustrations in front of us, we lose our perspective, we blow today's little messes way out of proportion, and we forget the larger picture of the great things God's doing in our lives. We miss the big picture!
God isn't expecting us just to ignore our frustrations, or bury our frustrations. He just wants us to dump them out in the right place, which David tells us about in Psalm 142:1 , "I pour out my complaint before Him; before Him I tell my trouble." Bring your complaints and frustrations straight to God. First, He's not going to be hurt by them. He's not going to be poisoned by them like the people around you will. Secondly, He can do something about them much more than the people around you can do.
Now, we all go through some garbage in our lives, and it's true we often need a place to dump that garbage. God has offered us a wonderful place to do that - at His feet.
Be careful not to pollute the environment around you. :)

You want me to give up WHAT?!

I haven’t told many people about this, but I feel like now is the time to talk about it.  Recently our church took part in a 40 day fast. As I was getting ready for the fast to start, I began praying that God would show me what He wanted me to give up.  I knew He wanted me to give up something BIG, but I wasn’t sure what at the time.  One day, I was praying that God would take away a migraine I was having and He spoke very clearly to me, telling me I needed to fast MEDICINE….ALL medicine.  I remember actually answering God back with a “wait, what did You just say?!  Are You SUUURRRE You said what I think You just said?!” 

Some back story: For the past 24 years I have relied on various types of medications for migraines. It’s gotten to the point that nothing works anymore, except one particular medicine that I can always count on to come through for me.  Throughout my life, I’ve seen doctor after doctor and have been given one hopeless diagnosis after another.  I had gotten to the point where I just gave up – excepting that my life will always be one of sickness.

It finally hit me, I’ve been relying on and putting my trust in medicine, and doctor’s opinions, instead of fully relying on GOD to HEAL me.

So, I did it….I gave up ALL medicine for 40 days!  Not even a Tylenol! It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure, but I serve an amazing God who kept showing himself faithful to me over and over and giving me the strength to get through each day.  I also have an awesome husband who encouraged me to keep going when all I wanted to do was give in an take the medicine that I knew would end my pain. He even wrote Bible verses on note cards and taped them to the wall beside my bed so that I could be reminded of God’s faithfulness and His healing power every time I was battling sickness.

At the end of the 40 days, I prayed again, and felt like God was not yet releasing me from the fast…so I kept going, not knowing how long it would be before I stopped the fast. Obviously there was a lesson in all of this I was supposed to be learning, and as the days past, I started seeing what that lesson was. When I reached the 70 day mark, I got another migraine.  This time, I began praying about whether or not to take my migraine meds again.  This was the first time I had asked God in the whole 70 days if it was okay to start them again.  For some reason I felt led to look up the Biblical meaning of the number 70.  When I did I was surprised to find this: Just as the number seven denotes perfection, maturity and completion, the number seventy denotes an entire period or a full state.

It had been 70 days since I have taken any meds! I felt like God was showing me that my sacrifice was complete.  That I had done what I needed to do – fully rely on HIM.

While I am still having migraines, I feel like I have a new outlook on life, a refocused faith. I guess after all the years of having the same mindset, I needed to be awakened, renewed, refocused. 

While I do feel like it is okay to take my medicine now, I will never again become so dependent on it like I was before.  I have learned to go to God FIRST for my help.  Throughout the past 70 days, I have learned that while doctors serve a purpose in our life at times, the only voice I want speaking into my life in regards to my migraines from now on is – GOD.  He created me, and HE is the only one who knows me inside and out. 

I am still expecting a total healing from Him, but until that day comes that He sees fit to heal me, I  know that my patience and reliance on Him will continue to grow. Sometimes it takes us making a drastic change in our life to bring our focus back to what is really important - our obedience to Christ and our devotion to Him.