Testimony

The provident faithfulness of God.

Did you know that illness can be an answer to prayer?

I had prayed that God would reignite my passion for Him, and, in particular, remind me of Him throughout the day. I had, thanks to Him, been in a good habit of those small thoughts, prayers, praises, and guidances, throughout the day, but for various reasons have neglected them recently - and only began to miss them even more recently. So I began to pray. Not often, nor with particular fervency, but God is faithful. And so He took my small prayers and vague wishings and multiplied them into a mild illness which lasted all week and culminated in my feeling quite nasty earlier.

(A gift and a blessing?)

"By faith they...out of weakness were made strong" (Heb 11)
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness"
"We have these treasures in jars of clay, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us"
"we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead."
Those first two verses haunted me Friday. I read Hebrews 11 that morning as a crossreference for a study of Genesis I'm doing, and my eye lit on the verse, and my mind snapped to the second, which was preached on last Sunday in church, as I recall.
What did God want with these verses??
I was weak, and I felt my weakness - and He revealed to me that this very weakness was the answer to my prayers. I felt my need for Him. And so, I remembered Him.


And there are His larger provisions. As I returned from the pool today, I pondered how different my life would be if my family had not joined Crossway - something we can definitely see God's guiding hand behind! ~
> I most likely would not be in Charlotte. My plan was always to go away to school - not to get away from my family, certainly not! But just to get a new start and hopefully make some friends. Even if I was still in Charlotte, I would be living on campus, simply because I felt like I would get to know people better that way.
> I sincerely doubt that I would be studying engineering. You can read more about that journey here, but let me add what I forgot to mention: that friend who was taking precalc? That was Beth Jakubisin, who I became friends with originally through worship dance, but particularly through attending Crossway. As you know if you read the rest of the story, that - from my finite viewpoint - was the beginning of my journey to study engineering.
> I probably would not have taught worship dance, and so would have missed the fruition of that then-growing, now almost defining passion -- passion because it is a chance to share God with others in a creative medium I enjoy, and particularly because it is one of my most consistent, amazing means of connecting with God.
> I definitely would not have joined Emily Elliott's Bible study group, which not only helped me in my walk with God, but especially in getting to know a quite a few of my current best friends, and, as God just now revealed to me, was a deeper blessing than I realized!

And too...
>> I might be Reformed, but I wouldn't know the term for it! :) And my views would probably not be as fully formed as they are now... not that they're quite fully formed...
>> I wouldn't speak of "God's grace" in my life and "if it would serve you" and I wouldn't know that pride was the root of every sin (or at least that it seems to be!)
>> I wouldn't have had an enjoyable graduation, if I had one at all!
>> I might have been an unsocialized homeschooler! Horror of horrors! ^_^