Friday, May 24, 2019

Growth in Recovery



I wrote my story before my transplant and I am glad I did. I have since this story been in three major surgeries in less than a year. I am currently going through procedures from my colon being removed and reading this has helped me in understanding the fullness of my recovery process. Reading this has allowed me to give myself credit for the things I am currently working through in my relationships and outside of them. I am still in the proper timing of who God has created me to be as I am recovering and being made whole, restored. We must trust that all things work together for good. It's not about my personal good as much as it serves for a greater understanding of how good God operates in maintaining order.


Well here it is ...


I was 16 years old when diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis. I didn't understand how your body would just decide to attack itself but it never stopped me from leading a full life of athletics. I ran marathons throughout school played soccer and basketball but running became my relief through college. I had two kids. The first in 2007 was my son and I called him my chosen one. I knew that having a child would be a nine month battle but I chose to go through with it. I had to go to several doctors and get treatments every so often. This is while going to school full time and working. After he was born I discovered I had also ulcerative colitis that developed from the pregnancy so that just added to the main issue. I had to move forward now to take care of a child. I never stopped running, never stopped going to school or working. I was pushing myself to my limit while taking care of my disorders. In 2009 I had my daughter, I call her my fighter because she was almost a miscarriage but through all of the things that I was doing to support my son and myself, she fought to stay here. Eventually I had to go on bed rest at the end of my pregnancy with her, more medical bills and now paying back student loans accumulated from over the years. I eventually ended up getting married to their father. Then one day my body shut down on me and my husband left me and the kids alone. I went to live with my sister who helps a lot. Now, after a few years, my children and I are back living with my parents. I have weekly appointments, emergency hospital admissions, and continuous treatments and procedures to help maintain me as stable as possible. I have been on disability for 3 years now that means one small check a month to take care of me and my 2 blessings, my kids.




I have always shied away from an opportunity to share my story. I don't know, I thought if no one knew it, was a step closer for me to just be normal, ordinary. But no matter how much of a secret I kept my life the extraordinary tended to follow. Around this time, (August of 2013), no one could have told me God had a plan for my life and I believe it because I felt I was facing the last of my days of my life at this moment. I had been ill for the past two months (June and July) prior and in the hospital fighting. I lost my home I had just got with my, then husband and two children, and eventually my husband at the time( I had just married that April) left me to tend to kids and come up with how we were going to now survive (just the three of us). Thank goodness for my family, they swooped in and took my kids in their care until I could get better which was the plan. Still wreak with questions and a shaken faith I was being told my percentages for liver transplant success, this was not high. My doctors felt they needed to act quickly on this pain that was leaving me weak so I was being prepared for multiple surgeries. I was visited by everyone in one evening from the Chaplin to the anesthesiologist. I told my own family who was calling me not to come visit me. All I wanted was peace so I told everyone not to come visit just go to the church and pray and I'll call and conference. The very next morning I was up and walking and without pain, I did not need those surgeries.



There has been some struggling points. I had days when I couldn't see my progression. I tried everything to make the things in my life successful. I beat myself up for not reaching a certain level of accomplishment and then there came a time when I realized I didn't understand progression; I found out that's why I couldn't see it.


You’re not just created to live but to utilize your purpose. That's why I have my non-profit event, A Chosen Generation Cafe where I speak to young people about my story and how I overcame all odds installing a message of being exceptional in Christ, who lives in me and in the lives of others.

Monday, May 20, 2019

Pray without ceasing



1 Thessalonians 5:17  "Praying without ceasing."

To be in constant communication with God is key to the direction in which we move in our lives because He gives us direction through His word and to obtain this direction we must listen. This is our example of effective communication that we should reference in all of our relationships.
         
Communication keeps us away from making foolish decisions out of ignorance. We cannot just assume what God's will for us is by merely just acting according to our own understanding of His word We still need Him, the Holy Spirit to connect the things we are knowledgeable of to what He is truly saying and speaking over our lives. We must not only talk to Him on a consistent basis but also listen.

Jeremiah 33:3  Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

This is key to obtaining knowledge and a wise man knows he needs knowledge ... We need the things learned through instruction and application which is the wisdom we need to be in a successful relationship. Invest the time in your relationships that is required for the full understanding of why you are in it.

A comprehensive relationship is to understand the truth of being in that relationship you hold with one another.

truth = the original information

I love the simplicity of this definition. We would like to think God is complex but He is not. In fact He is just this simple when it comes to His will for us. All He truly desires from us is to be as He has created us to be, in His image, imitators of His love. Show love in effective communication with others.