It's Not Chance; It's God's Will and Control

As you all know, I continue to struggle with my health: my unknown cause of abdominal pain, head pain, headaches, and neck pain.  There are days/weeks that are better and then there are days/weeks that aren’t so good; AND there are days that are so hard for me to function or even eat (especially when it deals with my abdominal pain).  It’s rough; but I try not to complain……it doesn’t mean I don’t wonder sometimes; I wonder why haven’t there been any answers to all of this?

A few nights ago, I was chatting with one of my cousins (non-Christian; and she knows our family is very Christ-centered) on line.  She’s a very caring and dear cousin to me and I love her family as well as my aunt and uncle (and of course I love NYC).   As it is with any “chat” conversation (or any conversation for that matter), we start by asking each other “how are you doing?”  If you are like me, I’m very general with people who you know just “ask” this question for the sake of asking; but my cousin knows my health status, so I told her honestly how I have been doing. That day I wasn’t doing well at all.    I had told her I had a rough day of pain and was unable to eat much and just in general I felt bad.    She responded by telling me that she felt sorry that I had a bad day and she wished I didn’t have to go through this.   She further typed on (this is a summery) about how she felt my life wasn’t fair because I was always a good person ever since I was a young child, I never did anything bad, I was always respectful….etc.. etc….. She couldn’t grasp how can someone so nice/good (like myself) go through such health issues all my life (she just wasn’t talking about my recent health issues the past 4-5 yrs but since I was born).  She couldn’t understand how “God” could allow things to happen and how I could  have such a good attitude towards it.   She attributed everything to “bad luck” 

----As I sat back a read….re-read…..and re-read again what she was typing to me via chat, my mind was flooded with so many thoughts, like:  OK…is this a good testimony time?  Is this a good time to re-evaluate my relationship with my Father?  Is this a time to just leave it as is, think it through and then get back to her?  What do I DO???   Then it came to me; I knew what to say and knew what to type back.  I was reminded about the study on Job that the Pastors at Covenant Presbyterian is doing.    Just because you did something bad doesn’t mean you are going to have bad things happen to you (karma); same thing is true if you flip the situation around:  just because you think you are good, doesn’t mean good things will happen to you.    No matter the situation, God is in control….God ordains what happens.   I further explained that my attitude only came from God and the knowledge that He is in control taking care of me. Having any other attitude doesn’t change the situation.  She knew this as she recalled my not complaining even as a young child.
There are times I wonder and I pray, for that day when I can say “this week (or even this day) has been a completely pain free day”.  I do struggle with understanding and I do wrestle a lot, even though I know it is all in God’s control and knowing that wrestling with the Holy Spirit is a mark of a true Christian.   Sometimes the pain is so real that it distracts me from spending time in His Word, but I know that the Father knows my heart.

I’m continuing to struggle physically and have more upcoming appointments with doctors to see what the next steps in treatments are.  I would covet your prayers.