Greater Things

Have you ever been stuck somewhere? Maybe it's been in a car with a whiny toddler or in a line at the drive thru that isn't moving forward and you have three cars behind you. Perhaps it's been at the table where Uncle Joe is telling you about the war...again or in an elevator standing at the back of the car with 20 some other cheerleaders and realizing that you've overloaded it (I can't breathe even typing that!). Obviously we've all been stuck at some time in our lives physically. But what about emotionally. Or spiritually. I'll admit to you, in the past month, I've been stuck in all three! Six weeks ago I had re-constructive surgery on my thumb - on my right hand. It started several years ago with an injury from a car accident that due to the lupus and the steroids that I take, caused degeneration in the bone and finally got to the point that I was unable to move or use it. This is the first time in six weeks that I have been able to type with it (it's actually part of my therapy) and I'm just now beginning the long task of learning to use it differently since they fused part of it and put pins and screws in. Because of the physical limitations, I'm sure that it contributed to finding myself stuck both emotionally and spiritually. It is so easy when you're smack dab in the middle of a situation to think "this is all there is" or "it's never going to get better".

We have been on this journey for Jordan's gastric bypass surgery for 18 months now and sometimes it really does feel like we take two steps forward and three steps back. A little over a week ago, we were at the point of being able to schedule his endoscopy - one of the last tests left to do. The entirety of last week was spent playing phone tag with the person whom he needs to speak to in order to do that. OUR desire is to have him finish this test, get fit with his CPAP machine and be ready when he sees the surgeon on the 28th of this month to schedule his surgery. Our urgency to get this done is not necessarily anyone else's!

When I find myself overwhelmed by just how stuck I really am, the first thing I do is to turn up the music! I'm pretty much willing to listen to anything (except nasty lyrics and rap:)) but when I'm really stuck, nothing works like worship. The first few days after my surgery when I was pretty much drugged beyond oblivion, I would turn my computer on and go to my Pandora station and would play praise and worship in my room for hours. This is so healing for me, to have many of the songs that are actually based on scripture reverberating through my head, even while I was sleeping. A couple of weeks ago I received a copy of the new worship CD from Women of Faith ~ I was one of 50 who was asked to listen and review it on my blog. A great activity considering the situation I was in! What I loved about the CD was that it didn't have just one style of music. There are so many different genres of worship music and they took all of them and made them feel fresh and new. "Healer" and "Amazed" had me on my knees thanking God for who He is and "Just Wanna Say" had the gospel girl in me dancing around the living room! It is this kind of CD that helps put my focus back onto the "Calmer of the storm" instead of the storm itself. A popular worship song right now is "God of This City" (Track 1) which states that "greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done". While the process of the journey is where we learn and is an important part, we can't forget that God is always working toward greater things. My hand, once healed, is going work greater than it has in 5 years. Jordan, after this long road and after the surgery, is going to be healthier and stronger than he's ever been and God has greater plans for him than he can even imagine. So, I'm holding on, and stepping out of being stuck so that I can go for the GREATER!!

(Jesus said) "The person who trusts me will not only do what I'm doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I've been doing. You can count on it." John 14:11 MSG