Convictions

Before I start this blog post I want to give a disclaimer! This post is about ME! Specifically me! I'm not talking about anyone else. It's about me and my personal deep convictions through Christ and the Bible. This post is NOT to start an argument and it is NOT a way of  trying to get someone to prove me wrong or praise me. This post is not about getting praise. It's about sharing with you all my convictions! Being real. That's all! :-)


Now that's out of the way! ;-) Lately God's really been convicting my heart! My life has been going amazing as of the past 2 months. I mean, everything's pretty much just flowed easily and I haven't had any REAL struggles. I mean, for me, I was kinda surprised. Like, almost holding my breath waiting for the bad to happen. Over the past 2 years it's just felt like one thing after another for me personally. Health. Mental. Even spiritual. I'd start to pick myself back up and get knocked down again. When I reflect on my life and my attitude over the past 2 years, shame is mostly what I feel. Some of you may be surprised to find this out. But, I truly feel shameful. Why? Well, I've acted childish to say the least. For most of my life people have praised me on my positive attitude! My ability to always smile and be happy. In fact it's a huge reason my husband married me. (among other things of course! lol)  As a teen, I never got into trouble. The worst I can say I did was have 2 whole drinks before the age of 21. I waited to have sex before marriage. I waited to be serious with dating until I found someone worth it. I got married, started a family. Everything was great. Flowing smoothly. My faith in God was strong. I had Christian supportive friends and family. Really....life was perfect. If I could think of any life I'd want...I had it. Then came life after having my second child. Postpartum depression. Add in a crying baby that cried NON STOP for the first year of his life. Well, you don't have a lovely picture. That nice life, seems a bit tainted now. Finally we broke through that. I got off anti depressants, felt more myself, got my son allergy tested, got him on the right track...life was looking up! I started working out. Loosing weight and feeling great, positive, motivated and strong in my faith. Then came cancer. It was a bit of a blow. I mean, I was within days of death when a friend finally MADE me go to the hospital. But, again, I still remained pretty positive. Because after all, I could have an incurable cancer and only have days to say goodbye to everyone I cared about. I also was blessed enough to find out while back home with family/friends and unlimited support. Dr's had a plan of action and the most I had to do was sit there and take it. Not saying that was easy. But again. It was easy to have strong faith in God. I wasn't going to die and leave my children (at not even 2 years old and barely 3 years old) motherless. I had support and help! And seriously, what did I have to be stressed about? My husband was the one who almost lost a wife, who now had to juggle hospital trips, doctors appointments, children and work. Plus all the other added stresses. (exp: Where are we going to live for the next 6 months?) I mean, for real. I had it easy. Physically I felt not great. But mentally.....I was good to go. Then....Oh then came life after cancer. No one warns you that the real fight begins AFTER cancer. No one bothered to warn me that my life was going to be so overwhelming to jump back into. Because, honestly, it didn't matter! I was "healed" and should be grateful because so many other cancer patients aren't as fortunate.

The following year after cancer was pure hell for me. As I'm sure anyone can imagine it wasn't easy. There were two huge elements that played a roll in the difficulty. The first being the obvious, the physical. Physically my body was poisoned from chemo. Yes of course the chemo killed my cancer. But as poison does, it also killed everything good. So I struggled with weight, blood sugars, hormones, depression, headaches and exhaustion. So physically I was stuck with an unhealthy body that I had to try and get back into some kinda good health. The second thing was my life. For 6 months I was laid up going through treatment. I remember sleeping through whole days at a time. But after cancer? There was none of that. I got my children back. We went back home to Michigan. I was handed my whole life back and didn't exactly know what to do with it. I didn't really know my children any more. They'd spent the whole summer at their grandparents house. I'd seen them off and on. But even when I saw them, it was between headaches and naps. I was given two children who had grown, matured and changed. I hadn't been a mother for 6 months and here they were handed back to me like "Here ya go! They're yours again!" At first I was completely overjoyed. I'd missed them. I'd missed our life. Our house. Our neighbors. Our friends. What we had before I was sick. Heck! When we came back home I cried at the sight of my bed. Imagine being so sick and not sleeping in your own bed! Oie! Not fun! All of this is to say, it was mega MEGA hard.

Looking back, I see so much better now, how horrible my attitude was. I was straight up angry at God. My faith lacked severely. It's not that I didn't believe in HIM any more. Or that I didn't think HE was real. Oh! I thought HE was real alright! Real enough to screw up my life! Why? Why did HE choose to do that to me?!?! What had I EVER done to HIM? I was so angry. Going from being someone who was always positive and happy to a very angry bitter person caught me way off guard. At first, I didn't even know what to do with myself. I just completely shut down. What do you say? How do you act? I was flying off the handle at every and any little thing. I was crying all the time. I was whining non stop. Things hadn't gone my way and I didn't understand why. I'd done everything right. All I wanted from life was a Godly, happy, healthy, successful marriage and more children than I can count. But why was I stuck with 2 (boys none the less....creatures who's habits I had yet to figure out) with the possibility of never conceiving again (thanks Cancer!)? Why was my marriage all of a sudden not picture perfect? Why were we fighting all the time and never talking? None of it made any sense to me. So I blamed God. It seemed like the only logical thing to do. HE was the one in control of my life. I always believed that. I knew HE had a plan for me and there was a reason. I started to see glimpses of the reasons. But because HE didn't send me an email outlining exactly what was going to happen in my life and why, I decided to throw a huge pity party.

Lot's of people will say I had a reason to be upset. And I know scientifically my mental state was off. That part is very clear. So I know I wasn't exactly in my right mind. But as I reflect on the past two years I see how childish I was. God didn't give me what I wanted! Hmph! How DARE HIM!!!!! Did HE know who I was? I was a good girl! There was zero reason for HIM to treat me like that! So I showed my protest! I stomped my feet! I whined constantly. I played the "Woe is me!" card so many times. When I think back to how much my friends put up with, I really don't understand why they're still around. (Mega shout out to Carissa, Megan and Ashley!) They must really love me.  haha I felt like all I did was complain for the past 2 years. That is why I'm ashamed. God blessed us with a third child! I couldn't believe it! One of my first thoughts was "Why is this happening? HE's tortured me for 2 years now. Why give me a blessing?" That sounds terrible to say, but like I said in my disclaimer. I'm being real with you all! After I found out I was pregnant life seemed to look up. My faith seemed to grow, my family is happy and healthy. I'm happy and positive again. Then God started to work on my heart. Why is it SO easy to have strong faith when things are going our way, but SO hard when it's not! The answer is because I'm a sinful human being. Plain and simple. I am ashamed of my behavior because in bad times I didn't praise God through my storm. Instead, I hate HIM and became bitter. As much as it hurts to admit all of this, it does make me feel good. Because it shows that Christ never gave up on me! He's still stirring my heart.  He's still there pushing me. Making me realize my faults and helping to grow from that. I'm not perfect. I never claimed to be! But I'm grateful to my gracious God who has loved me anyways! Who through it all, encourages me to continue growing. He's such a merciful God to still love me even when I'm throwing a fit like a 2 year old. So, this has been my recent conviction. I will continue to grow in HIM even when I fail him constantly. And it won't be just because I'm getting what I want, but because regardless of life itself, HE loves me and takes care of me! And that's all that matters!