Thorns In the Flesh and Big Encouragement

(NOTE: this blog post was started the Monday before Mothers day and has been a slow work until today)
Oh where to begin! This past week has been a very hard week! In every way…..the funny thing is, I never told anyone I was struggling! Not even my husband! My husband has been working hard both here at home and for church, and I was doing my very best to help him in every way!

This is my first blog post in over a week. I wanted to blog but yet i didn’t know what to write! Something I rarely if ever struggle with. I wanted to read but didn’t know what to read, wanted to work but had no ambition. All of my strength both mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually were going to keep my four kids in line! And one of those kids had his worst week in like four months!

I had been to a ladies luncheon on Saturday then church yesterday. I felt kinda blank, that’s the best word I have to describe what I felt! But as the day progressed a few people said somethings that were curious to me.

One lady asked me how my week was…my response was something along the lines of…..it was a tough week…….her remark…I thought so!
(Wow!)

About 45 minutes later another lady going through the greeting line at church encouraged me that her husband and her pray for us two to three times a day. (Double wow…but it doesn’t stop there)

We had a couple of ladies over for lunch and then I take a nap, when I woke up there was a note from a college friend I hadn’t spoken with in a few months, and her note again was encouraging. (But wait …still not done)

Just before bed last night I grabbed my ipad and was scrolling though FB and again up popped a private message from a college friend i haven’t spoken with in a while. She shared a blog with a poem about mothers day. Again hit right at home. I don’t even know if she knows about our son who we have come to discover has autism, so when the poem mentioned moms who face the loss of dreams for their children it acknowledged something most people can’t begin to understand. Something that is a very big reality for us.

I’m not a cup half empty sort of girl, but i have to realize that the fact of the matter is he might just need care for life. He might not be independent. Does that mean my faith is small no not a chance! If anything my faith has been forced to be realistic. I am absolutely sure God can do anything. He is capable and a Very VERY BIG GOD! But that doesn’t mean that things are going to work out the way I want them to.

This lesson was one I learned at 16. I had something taken away that at the time i took for granted. Today i don’t take it for granted…each day is a huge blessing when i can see my smiling children and my husbands red hair 🙂 and the amazing view of God’s creation out my back window! That’s right, i’m legally blind and have been so for over half of my life.

One of the biggest struggles I had when I first came to terms with my disability was not that I would never be healed but because i was okay with that I was told by other believers that I had given up and that I didn’t have faith that God could or would heal me. I wrestled with that many times but in the end God had placed the perfect example in the Bible for me and that is His servant Paul. He wrestled with his thorn in the flesh, was at peace with it, served despite it, and did not obsess over the fact God hadn’t healed him yet. This thorn in his flesh was to be used to the glory of God, as is mine, as is my sons. No i do not know what the future holds for weasel, but I know that whatever it is I have come to grips with it. I have made peace with it. I have embraced it. And it was through all of those people that God encouraged me through that. At the time I had no idea this was what He was bringing me to but He did and I am grateful!

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