Body-Building

As I sit here at my computer, pondering what to write on my blog, I am faced with a startling revelation. Somehow I let the entire month of October go by without blogging even once. That's the first time in the year and a half since I started blogging that I have let a month go by "un-blogged."

My first reaction is that it's a good thing because I have obviously not felt the NEED to blog. Back when I started this project, it was during a time of emotional turmoil brought on by a diagnosis of multiple scerlosis. There were so many thoughts churning through my head that I just had to get them all out. As I look back through my posts since then, I can see a trend of fewer and fewer posts each month. But never have I skipped a month entirely.

My second reaction is that it's not such a good thing. Another reason I started the blog was because during that same time of turmoil, God was pouring so much grace and goodness into my life that I felt a need to keep a record of it to help me remember it all, and to serve as an encouragement to others. I have been repeatedly amazed at how God has used the stories and words recorded here to help and encourage others! That's the main reason I kept blogging even after the initial crisis died down, and that's also the main reason I need to continue blogging.

God is at work in my life, and in all our lives, every day, whether or not we take the time to notice. I guess I felt drawn back to the computer because this week he reminded me of that again in a very powerful way that has touched and humbled me so deeply.

Around this time last year, my husband and I breathed a big sigh of relief as our kitchen renovation project was finally completed. It had dragged on for a couple of months, and the start of the project was delayed for months to begin with because of my diagnosis earlier in the year. At that time when I explained to Barbara, my friend and kitchen consultant, the reason we needed to put things on hold for a while, she told me that she and her prayer group from her church would be lifting me up in prayer. I was very grateful then, and the many times thereafter that she continued to assure me she and her group were praying for me.

Well, fast foward more than a year later. I'm now a discussion leader for my Bible Study Fellowship group. I shepherd a group of about 15 wonderful ladies that I have been so blessed to get to know over the last several weeks. The other day I was talking to one of these ladies on the phone. She told me that when she mentioned my name to her mother, her mother remarked that her prayer group (my friend Barbars's group) had been praying for me for a really long time!

I cannot even express how humbled and how grateful I felt in that moment. It was during a week that found me pity partying over my health after having studied the story of Jesus healing the child of a royal official, and feeling frustrated that my own prayers for physical healing have gone unanswered. A week of questioning whether my faith is strong enough or sufficient enough, instead of trusting the complete sufficiency and sovereigny of my Heavenly Father.

It was that week and in that place of heartache that God chose to reach out and remind me of his great care and love for me through other believers, the Body of Christ.
Ephesians 4:16 says "from him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

I'm so thankful for the prayers that so many in the body have offered up on my behalf. They have provided the supporting ligaments that have sustained, encouraged, and touched me deeply. And they have inspired me to keep praying not only for others, but myself as well. It's so cool that now I have the privilege of praying regularly for the daughter of this woman who has been praying for me!

I know that the timing of the phone conversation with the woman in my Bible study group was no accident because God's timing is perfect. And his timing for my physical healing will also be perfect, whether it takes place on this earth or when it's time to receive my new heavenly body.
So I will choose to persevere and to trust, and to do my part, focusing less on my body and more on the body of Christ!