First of all, I would like to thank you for your prayers for my Chicky. It is a comfort to us to know that we have prayer warriors standing in the gap, lifting petitions to heaven.
I thought I would update you on the latest news.
Chicky visited the doctor yesterday, and he ordered an x-ray. The results came back immediately and did not show any damage to the patella or the surrounding bone.
She then underwent an MRI. We won’t have the results until Monday or Tuesday, so we are in a holding pattern until then.
Meanwhile, Chicky is able to walk without the aid of crutches. She’s still in pain, but she is keeping a positive attitude, as indicated by her Tweets.
Her strength inspires me, and her faith is truly admirable. What a wonderful example to everyone who sees her and knows her story.
Please continue to pray. Nothing is not too big for the awesome God we serve!
Chicky’s appointment with the trainer was somewhat inconclusive. She will be seeing a doctor in the morning and getting an X-ray. Depending on the results, she may or may not get an MRI.
We still have hope for that knee and are praying that God intervenes.
Please keep her lifted in your prayers.
Please pray that the internal swelling, tightness, and pain disappear.
Chicky is trying to be strong, and I am so proud of her.
In her core, she is a fighter…one of the toughest young ladies I have ever known.
Trust can be difficult, though, when you’re challenged in a vulnerable area.
God is good, and we know that His plans are perfect.
I am asking you to pray for my precious Chicky. She got hurt during yesterday’s game…a no-contact injury that was a fluke in nature.
Initial tests are worrisome. She goes back to the trainers later today.
Please pray for God’s healing touch on her right knee.
We saw God use His power when He miraculously healed her shoulder last year (I think it was). She was told she would probably need surgery when she dislocated it. She didn’t. Nothing was torn when the MRI results came back.
Please pray for healing. I know God can do this if He chooses, and I’d love for God to say yes simply because people have knocked down His door, jammed his phone line, filled his email box, and worn out the carpet (due to prayers offered on bended knees).
Please pray, too, for Chicky’s emotions. She’s a strong young woman but understandably nervous.
My friend, Barb, knows otherwise. Well, so does my family, truth be told. But Barb is the one who likes to say, when my horns come out, “That’s just proof that Jesus ain’t done with you yet.”
So true.
Still, though, as Lysa TerKeurst says in her book, Unglued, the goal should be to seek after imperfect progress rather than perfection, which is unattainable.
This summer has been one of rest…one of reflection. I have wondered over these last couple of months how I will do when tested.
My first real test came a few days ago when someone responded to a message that I’d accidentally “replied to all.”
She wasn’t aware that I was going to see her message, and let me tell you that she had some very, very unkind things to say about me.
She and I have a history that goes back many years. Things were said back then, and relationships were broken. We’ve hardly spoken since.
After I read her message, I sat in shock.
I flashed back to the events that had led to our original break.
I remembered the emotions and the anger that had surrounded me during that time.
It had been a very bad time for me, personally. I’d recently lost my dad and was dealing with the shock that accompanies losing someone unexpectedly.
I read her message on Facebook several more times.
I considered my options…should I respond and if so, what should I say?
I remembered Lysa’s words of wisdom…gifts from the Lord to my thirsty soul.
I sent this woman a response that did not accuse. It subtly let her know that I had seen the response she’d crafted, but I didn’t jump in to defend myself.
I told her that I wanted to put everything behind us so we could deal with the big issue that we need to deal with. This is something that is going to take both of us, in cooperation, to complete.
I also told her that during the intervening years, my heart had softened.
I used to be a person who flew off the handle. My emotions always run just below the surface.
I still erupt sometimes, but I tend to suppress a lot now, although my face still shows how I feel.
These ten-plus years have changed me, though. My experiences in life as well as my walk with God have matured me.
It has been the lessons I’ve learned in Unglued that have left their mark and have been the catalyst for the most recent changes in my heart attitude.
She responded to my response (are you keeping up) very quickly and told me that while my heart may have softened, her’s has not, and that she will probably always be bitter.
The anger runs strongly through her veins still. However, as I read those sad words along with the rest of her message, I almost felt her desperation and longing to believe what I was saying.
I responded one more time, trying to be careful not to fan the flames that are obviously still burning. But, as Lysa suggests in her book, I laid things out in a very honest way that did not excuse her from the role she had played in the division between us.
I ended my note by asking for her forgiveness.
I haven’t heard back from her.
I don’t know if I will, but in the meantime, I will be praying for her.
This, too, is huge for me.
I don’t know about you, but praying for those who hurt me is pretty low on my to-do list…right below having my toe hairs pulled out one-by-one.
I’m not telling you this story to glorify myself, because I know my heart all too well.
All glory goes to God for His hand that stopped me from writing something like, “You are seriously not over this yet?”
It is my prayer that this woman will draw comfort from the grace I extended. By not being gruff, I did not give her any fuel for her anger.
I hope that one day she will see that God can heal the heart. In fact, He’s the only person who can…if she allows Him to.
I heard the song on the radio last night while I was cleaning the kitchen, and I thought of how much we need God in our lives…to help us fight temptation…to get through life’s challenges.
Today in church, Tom resumed his Bible Story Remix by using the story of Goliath to point out deeper truths.
Today’s message was about how we are our own worst enemies, and how we do ourselves in when we sit on the throne of our lives instead of allowing God to reign there.
As an overachiever and a control freak, I identified with this…a lot.
As in the story of Goliath, Saul did himself in by refusing to acknowledge that he was not God’s chosen one to lead Israel. His determination to sit on his own thrown, literally and figuratively, eventually led to his demise and the crowning of David, God’s handpicked successor.
It can be so difficult to reprogram our thinking, can’t it?
As a mother, I am in charge of my home.
As a teacher, I am the queen of my “Queendom,” as I like to tell my students.
Am I really, though?
It seems that it is when I forget “Who’s” really in charge, that I lose complete control…things overwhelm me, and I go into fight or flight mode…unhealthy responses.
I need to see these responses as reminders that I’ve displaced God…that I need to seek His forgiveness and take a backseat to His leadership.
It’s kind of funny, but the song that started going through my head as Tom preached was, Who is the King of the Jungle.
This song was on a children’s video we owned many years ago, and my kids and I used to sing it all the time.
Although a bit childish in nature, it speaks of great truth…a truth I would do well to imprint upon my heart.
This morning, my church’s new senior pastor spoke at the campus my family attends (my church has two campuses).
Before he got up to speak, we had our music worship time.
I don’t know how the music is where you attend, but my church’s contemporary worship team ROCKS it!
Christian music is so important to me.
It whispers God’s truths to me.
It soothes my soul when I’m troubled. The day after Aubie passed away, I heard a song on the radio that brought me to tears but comforted me at the same time.
The upbeat songs allow me to celebrate, exuberantly, God’s blessings and His mercy.
The songs this morning spoke words of affirmation and allowed me to express to the Lord how grateful I am for His most recent work in my life.
As you are aware, if you read my blog regularly, I have been struggling with something that happened the last week of school.
I have struggled with the anger and hurt that completely overwhelmed me.
But God has been so gracious, let me tell you.
Let me pause a moment to briefly tell you what the morning’s sermon was about, and then I will tie everything together.
We were told of Esther, a Jewish woman who became King Xerxes’s queen after he banished Queen Vashti. He didn’t know Esther was Jewish…only that she was more beautiful than any other woman paraded before him during the selection process.
In the meantime, Haman, an ambitious noble in King Xerxes’s court, had a vendetta against Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, who refused to pay homage to Haman. Haman figured out a way to get the king to send out an edict to have all Jewish people slaughtered.
Mordecai appealed to Esther, asking her to use her position as the queen to ask Xerxes to intervene and save the Jews. She refused, at first, but later acquiesced. In the meantime, Haman’s hatred for Mordecai increased, to the point where he planned to have him impaled upon a pole; however, through an uncanny set of circumstances, it was Haman who was impaled on the pole, and Mordecai’s name was heralded throughout the city.
One of my pastor’s themes of his message was that God purposely ordained every circumstance to advance His plans to save His chosen people.
My pastor said that nothing happens by accident but by God’s providence.
How does this relate to me and my recent introspection?
Looking at the timeline of what has happened since the issue at school…
It just so happened that school ended the same week as the “issue,” freeing me of the obligation of facing the people, on a daily basis, who had hurt me. This gave me much needed distance to process everything.
It just so happened that I worked my tail off and completed my ESOL class in under a week, leaving me free from further obligations so that I could rest.
It just so happened that I discovered a devotion series called Unglued on my phone’s Bible app, and each day’s words ministered to me greatly.
It just so happened that I had time each day to read one chapter. I chose not to read more than that at a time so I could process the wise words, smartly written…seemingly just for me.
It just so happened that chapter by chapter, my eyes were opened to the ways I process raw emotions, and I discovered healthier, scriptural-based ways of handling them.
It just so happened that Chicky and a local girl who will be attending Southeastern on a soccer scholarship (they will be teammates) have become good friends this summer. She attends our church. We have gotten to know her parents better as a result.
It just so happened that Chicky’s friend’s parents invited us to their small group, where the studies, seemingly random, have dealt with anger…letting go of the past…healing.
It just so happened that one of this morning’s worship songs talked about trials and praising God through them…
When I consider the things I’ve been through (and I realize they pale in comparison to the trials I’ve witnessed others go through), I am humbled by God’s merciful goodness and His never-ending presence.
I am so thankful for God’s timing…the way He orchestrates each event in my life…the way He uses the bad stuff to make me more like Him.
I’ve turned a couple of corners this summer. I’m not home yet…I don’t know that I will be home until I enter heaven…but I can say, with genuine joy, that it is well with my soul.
This morning, my pastor, Tom, preached an excellent sermon.
He always does.
He is working his way through some of the Bible’s most famous children’s stories and explaining the lessons that we adults can take from them.
This morning’s lesson came from the story of Jericho and its walls coming down.
One person was key, though, to helping with this success…Rahab.
Rahab was a prostitute and not an Israelite, but she hid the spies that had been sent out to do surveillance work and covered for them when officials in Jericho launched a search.
In return for her help, she was spared when the walls came down.
I’ve heard this story many, many times; however, Tom said something that struck me anew this morning.
To paraphrase his words (Tom, if you’re reading this, forgive me if it’s not an accurate paraphrase), in the midst of such destruction, God kept, intact, His plan for salvation.
You see, in case you didn’t know, Rahab became a part of the lineage of Christ.
That’s right.
A prostitute…one of Jesus’s ancestors.
Oh, there are many lessons we can draw from this one story; however, what spoke to my soul today was that we may never know why God allows things. I think about the storms that hit my area recently, and the flooding they caused. I think about the various conflicts going on in the world and the tragedies that occur on a daily basis.
We have to trust that God’s plan for His people is being carried out, even when we cannot see and when we may never know the “why’s” of the hard times.
Rahab never knew that the Savior of mankind would come from her DNA.
The Israelites didn’t know, at the time, either.
Only later did God reveal His plan.
Sometimes we never get to find out, and still the faith must remain.
I am so in awe of God’s faithfulness, and I am humbled that though He knew how sinful His people would become, He still made a way for us to spend eternity with Him.
I am so thankful for the example of Rahab that helps me trust God even more.
I know, with a firm certainty, that no matter what life throws at me, that God is in control…that His plan is magnificent, and it WILL be accomplished.
Yesterday at church, my pastor preached a dynamic sermon.
The topic was legacy.
He is currently preaching his way through some of the more famous stories in the Bible and explaining the very adult themes of each of these seemingly “kiddie” stories.
Yesterday’s story was the Tower of Babel, and how people were forced to spread out around the world to spread God’s message.
This, my friends, needs to be every Christian’s legacy…sharing God’s Word.
I loved when my pastor said that we need to be purposeful about the legacy we create. If we’re not purposeful, our legacy will, more than likely, be a negative one.
Isn’t it true that to truly lead a life for God, we must be purposeful in the decisions we make every day?
I think about my recent post about the language I use. I must, at times, choose my words carefully, especially when I’m angry.
Tom, my pastor, spoke about how we are to share the story of our legacy, and how it came to be, with others.
For instance, think of the stories that have been handed down from one generation to another. You probably have favorite family stories…and some not-so-favorite.
Christians have their own legacies. Some involve people who were amazing servants for God…who loved Him passionately and passed that love and devotion to their children.
Others are first-generation Christians. Their legacy is different and not any less valuable.
I thought about my own legacy.
I grew up in a broken home, and religion, until I moved to Alabama when I was nine years old, was fairly nonexistent.
When I moved to Alabama, I started attending a small Baptist church, where everyone gets religion fast!
😀
I remember reading my Bible in my room late at night, and I accepted Christ a long time before I told anyone.
One night, my mom came into my room and found me reading my Bible. She made fun of me and questioned why I was reading it.
I didn’t say anything, but I put my Bible away and didn’t pull it out much for a while after that.
She later got saved, but our relationship was so broken (still is), that we really never talked much or meaningfully about our faith.
I publicly accepted the Lord the day after my high school prom and was baptized shortly afterward.
I’ve been serving God ever since…sometimes closely and sometimes more remotely, as people are prone to do. My love for Him has never waned.
I raised my children with before-school devotions and prayer, along with church activities and whatnot.
I’ve not been a perfect mother, that I know, but I hope that my love for God ultimately shows through in the end.
I’m trying to apply this love for the Lord to my students…how I care for them…without preaching to them.
I hope that my love for God can be felt by my friends, whom I love dearly and would do nearly anything for.
I am soooooo not perfect. This was made abundantly clear to me, once again, last week.
Daily, I look into the mirror and am unhappy with what I see. I know my heart well and the areas that need much work.
This is the legacy I’m cultivating, warts and all, and I hope that when all is said and done, I will hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
In the end, though, it’s about the Lord and bringing others to a saving knowledge of Him.
If I play one small role in the amazing journey another person has toward finding Him, I will consider my life as being worthwhile.
Nichole Nordeman – Legacy Lyrics
I don't mind if you've got something nice to say about me
And I enjoy an accolade like the rest
And you could take my picture and hang it in a gallery
Of all the who's who's and so-and-so
That used to be the best at such and such
It wouldn't matter much
I won't lie, it feels alright to see your name in lights
We all need an 'Atta Boy' or 'Atta Girl'
In the end I'd like to hang my hat on more besides
The temporary trappings of this world
I want to leave a legacy, how will they remember me?
Did I choose to love? Did I point to you enough
To make a mark on things? I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who blessed your name
Unapologetically and leave that kind of legacy
I don't have to look too far or too long awhile
To make a lengthly list of all that I enjoy
It's an accumulating trinket and a treasure pile
Where moth and rust, thieves and such will soon enough destroy
I want to leave a legacy, how will they remember me?
Did I choose to love? Did I point to you enough
To make a mark on things? I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who blessed your name
Unapologetically and leave that kind of legacy
Not well traveled, not well read
Not well-to-do or well bred
I just want to hear instead
"Well done good and faithful one"
Yeah, yeah
I want to leave a legacy, how will they remember me?
Did I choose to love? Did I point to you enough
To make a mark on things? I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who blessed your name
Unapologetically and leave that kind of legacy
I don't mind if you've got something nice to say about me
AuburnChick's Adventures 