Stop And Smell The Flowers

I don't know about you, but I hate being sick. I'm not the whining type of person when I get sick. I just hate being sick, cause I feel like it slows me down and hinders me from what I want may want to do or that it affects the plans I may have.

 

I knew about a week ago that I was going to get sick. It was like almost a given when my husband came home from work one day and told me that he was getting a cold. Of course I did every thing in my power not to get what he had. I disinfected the keyboards and things around it when he was done on the computer. I wouldn’t touch the things that he had placed in his mouth, (i.e., the silverware.) And when he told me that he drank straight from the pitcher that was full of orange juice that I just made for him, well I didn’t touch that either. And as an extra precaution, I went and stocked up on the cold meds, juice and soup, just in case my body decided to give in and get the cold. And wouldn’t you know it, it did give in.

 

Now mind you, I am not one that is a stranger to getting sick. I’ve just feel that I have more than my fair share of ailments. Raising three kids that are 2-2-1/2 years apart didn’t mean that my household was a germ-free living environment.  Plus I found as I got older, my body has its own issues.  I have two degenerate disks that like to act up from time to time and used to leave me flat on the ground for hours at a time. Also, because of my late term abortion, I had to have a partial hysterectomy at a young age. And the latest addition to my illness I have fibromyalgia. (Which, by the grace of God, seems to be under control).

 

So as you can see, ailments and I seem to go hand in hand. It was, however, that during one of these “ailments” that I had cried out to God and asked him why I was plagued with these things. Sure, I can understand that living in a sinful world, and the fall of Adam and Eve, and that the choices I made in my life that affects how my body responds to issues. But there are some days I feel like I have more than my fair share of these issues. This is when I learned, that you don’t ask God questions, unless you are really ready for the answers.

 

You see, the key part I was missing, was placing everything and everybody first in my life. At this time of my life, I was a wife, and a mother, and an employee and even a taxi cab driver (or it felt like it). I was filling every one else’s needs, wants and desires, but I wasn’t taking care of my own. You've heard of the saying that goes “stop and smell the flowers”. I couldn’t because all of my priorities were misconstrued. I didn’t place what should have been number one in my life, which was God. I mean how could I? I felt that I barely had enough time for my self, and to allow time to sleep and always eating on the run (so it seemed), and trying to maintain a household, which meant allowing less time to seek God. Sure I prayed, (at church) and I fellowshipped with God (at church) and I worshiped God (at church). But that is where I kept God, was at church. I didn’t allow Him, or invite Him into my life as my number one priority. It wasn’t until one day that when I was flat on my back for days, and crying out to Him, that I realized how all along He had been trying to get my attention, and the only way to get it was to make me stop dead in my tracks, flat on my back, and focus on Him and what it was that He was trying to tell me all along.

 

“How can I feed His sheep, without feeding myself first? How can I know what His voice sounds like if I don’t allow Him time to talk to me? How can I know how to minister to His children, till I allow Him to minister to me? How can I talk about His love, grace and mercy, if I don’t study His word? Just like our earthly relationships, how do we know what makes people tick, unless we spend time with them. So how is my relationship with God any different? If I want more of God in my life, I need to allow Him more time with me so that I may be used more by God, and learn how to be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit promptings. Sure I knew the “basics of God” but is that all I wanted to learn about Him? If a person stops wanting to learn, doesn’t that speak out that they want to live in a mundane life? I don’t know about you, but I know that I don’t serve a mundane God.  If I just took the time to listen, read, study, pray, then I wouldn’t be feeling like I am always wrestling with God. And He in turn wouldn’t have to wrestle with me, to get my attention.”  

 

In James 4:8 (a) it tells us this: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” In James 4:10 it also tells us this: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

 

I know now that every time I get sick, it’s not always that God is trying to get my attention. I know that it’s just the way of life, and will be this way until the day I die. But it doesn’t hurt to double-check myself, just to make sure I’m on the right track.