When God Says No – Devotional Diva

I wanted to dig up this blog post from 2004, but I’ve been so busy with life that it took me longer to find it. I did a clean sweet of my blog a few years ago and removed all blog posts from my beginning years of blogging, but I felt God impressing this one on my heart to share again–a key principle that most (if not all) will learn at some point.

Do not be afraid.

You are not alone.

[What happens when God says no? -Previously Posted, November 23, 2004]

This Thanksgiving will be a one-year anniversary for me. Last Thanksgiving is when the bumps on my right pinky finger got infected and started rapidly spreading. I let it spread for 2 months before coming home from my mission’s trip. At the time I just thought, “well, God is God and He must heal me.”

I was SO offended when God didn’t heal me.

Well, if I would have taken proper care of myself I would have come home immediately and gotten off my high horse and humbled myself, swallowed my pride that I F-A-I-L-E-D at being the missionary I wanted to be, and thought God wanted me to be. I would have spared myself lots of needless suffering.

I feel like screaming!

I am realizing that life is not always about this big spiritual high.

Yes, God is sovereign and He is in CONTROL OF EVERYTHING, but I cannot analyze everything and say things like “God said” or “God told” or whatever.

I want to be Holy Spirit led, yes.

I want to be God’s child and obey Him, yes.

I want God’s will for my life, yes.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my pride and my life and where I want to go that I can’t help but making a big fool out of myself.

Who the heck knows where my life is going now! I have to re-build. It’s only been about 4 months that my life has been in an okay, and somewhat stable position. I am working now, barely, and surviving okay.

My soul yearns for more, yes, but I am not letting myself get to the point where I was before.

I’ll never forget being on the phone with my dermatologist (whose only reference to God was the cross warn around her neck) over the weekend. I had called her home in an emergency because my rash was now all the way up my arms. I felt so helpless that I wanted to commit suicide, and she told me “well, sometimes God says NO!”

Tears.

Seek God FIRST, and then all these things will be added to you.

Two weeks later, I gather enough courage and physical strength to go to church, ask the pastor to pray over me.

I believe that I need God first and if I die, I die.

If I can’t use my arms, I can’t use them.

If another man finds me attractive again…

If I never work again…

If I never write again, I will be okay.

Not my will but yours.

From that Sunday on, God removed the rash from my arms, and has been helping me deal with any flare ups on my right hand where it started.

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good (and faithful). His love endures forever.

Pictures from 2004: Finger & Hand before it spread all the way up my arms.