I've taken a break from posting for a while. I needed to recover physically, but I also took some time just for myself to be with my fathers (Heavenly, the other earthly). A little over a month ago, something happened to me that shook every facet of my life and nearly ended it. What seemed like the stomach flu turned out to be a hole in the wall of my colon--a hole that was leaking everything in my digestive system back into my body. After a few days, the pain was unbearable. After hours in the Emergency Room, the doctors decided to operate and fix the problem.
After a week in the hospital, I was allowed to come home and continue the recovery process. I now have this lovely scar on my stomach that has effectively ended my modeling career (I'm SO distraught, as you can all tell...) and I'm still pretty lame some days, but I'm definitely on the mend. This entire ordeal has also been a time of spiritual healing for me, too--healing that I didn't even know I needed. I guess it's like when sometimes we go to a doctor and they tell us something is wrong even though we feel fine. I didn't realize how much I'd been hurting spiritually until I wasn't able to even have the slightest bit of control over my life and had time to lay back and see it all. As I've written about before, I struggle with trust. Trust in friends, family, myself, God. Through all of the surgery and recovery, however, I never ONCE doubted whose hands my life was in. I even got the point of being angry because I knew now wasn't my time, and God has plans for me. Why in the world was I lying in a hospital bed?!
I was lying there because God needed to literally break me down to work on me. The major area of trust seemed to be taken care of. I'd come through this surgery with doctors telling me that I was going to make a full recovery. With my condition, that's no small feat. Usually people die from this kind of problem. I was close to death because my body was literally poisoning itself. God preserved me to serve Him, and only Him. Even though I still fail (miserably sometimes), I know that this life isn't mine. And there is NOTHING that is going to tear me away from the Love of Christ--not even my own sin. I don't know what it is I've done to be worthy of His grace, but I am worthy.
The other part of my life that God used this ordeal to work in was my relationship with my father. Before my surgery, our relationship wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either. Because of my trust issues I thought a lot of things that weren't true. I never felt good enough. I felt like I was always being criticized. I even had days where I felt like I wasn't important. God proved me wrong. Through all of this, I've seen the Lord at work in my father and there's been some kind of change. My last day in the hospital I was listening to a song on my iPod and I heard God's voice so clear that it reduced me to tears. Not only was the wall I'd put up around my heart crumbling because I now felt what it meant when God says He loves me (not just know it), but every hesitation, inhibition, lonely thought, and worry about me and my father was wiped away. He sat with me, prayed with me and my pastor, took care of me, listened to me whine and complain, and he still sat through it all and was there every step of the way. Since I've been home I've seen God at work in him. It's not going to be an overnight thing, but He is definitely doing a work in my father that I've prayed about for years. I think back now to the words I said that last afternoon in the hospital...
I have my dad back. God kept me home from the Dominican Republic and I see a part of what He's been working on through this otherwise painful, dark time. I'm very blessed to have two parents in this life who have raised me to look toward the Son for everything and to have one parent realize what he once taught me is a blessing that's going to stick with me forever. I was so afraid of things being stagnant and never improving with him, and I spent so much time being angry that I never bothered to let this go and let God in. When I finally did, I was reminded of who is in control. I kind of laugh because all it took was me letting go instead of harboring years of anger to be healed.
In case you're wondering, this is the song that was playing on my iPod that Friday afternoon.
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