Karen's Crossings~~~Journey with Epilepsy and Cancer

Howdy,

On Karen's Crossing's I am going to be reviewing more the tools I used for fighting my stress seizures over 20 years. I will be covering them on my other BlogSpot http://COCWF.blogspot.com as they were the topic I spoke about at Women's Retreat this year. In order to complete what I started with the ladies I'm going to finish reviewing them on the Women's Retreat blog.

So join me over there on a topic I have covered on this BlogSpot as well under Karen's Crossings.

As far as the current episode of Karen's Crossings, my tumor markers have gone up again in a jump of 17 points. Last month they had jumped 9 points. Monday I will be having a bone scan test and Wednesday another CT scan looking for signs of new growth. If there is no new growth it could have been stress that made them jump. Go figure, stress is such a tattler. Perhaps that is a good thing then it makes us look a little closer where we need to give something over to the Lord because evidently we can't handle it.

I have had a stressful month with my father-in-law dying, my best friend's dad dying as well, then my aunt too, plus my granddaughter's 7 baby pit bull puppies. However, that doesn't give me an excuse to not continue to lean on the Lord and trust in His lead to see me through so many tears and sad, sad memories. As I told someone at church today, who just found out he had cancer, that we needed to get together and have us a lemon-aide stand. After all, they say when life throws you a lemon, you need to make lemon-aid. In other words, learn how to make the most of what you are dealing with in life. As tough as it is at times, its possible when we trust God.

Anyway hop on over to WOCWF and follow along.

In love W.I.T.H. Jesus,

Karen

Accident Insurance Policy

What if I stumble, what if I fall? What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all? Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl? What if I stumble and what if I fall? “What if I stumble?” chorus by DC Talk

Out on the battlefield of operation “Stress Seizures” my plattoon that consisted of of me, myself, and I had a motto. It was, “Satan can make us stumble but he can’t make us fall.” Stumbling was inevitable, it was something that was bound to happen whether it was my fault or an unknown cause.

For some reason at the time I saw the act of falling as something that was a choice I had the power to make. I saw it as my own decision to stay down once I was there with my face to the ground unwilling to get back up and move on. Denying myself the opportunity to move forward and let the wind on my face heal my wounds while I walked towards God.

Making a fool of myself felt like a daily occurrence as Satan blocked my true view of God and myself with the barrier of walls he was building around me. Walls painted with “What if I do this?” “What if I do that?” “What if I fall?” “What if I can’t do it?” “What if I should have done something else?” What if, what if, what if….WHAT IF!

I was paralyzed with a fear before I even started to do something. It was a fear that kept me down and stopped me before I even started. The echo it gave off sounded something like this, “I have no faith. I have no trust. No one cares if I fall anyway. Once a fool, always a fool.”

Running to God my tattle-tellers, which were the stress seizures I had whenever I worried about something, told on me. Already abreast of what was going on God handed me my accident insurance policy, His love and forgiveness.

He showed me daily that the “what ifs” I tried so hard to hang on to didn’t matter. What counted, what mattered, what was important was God’s love for me. It came with an accident forgiveness plan that even Allstate couldn’t top. I felt it in my heart. I saw it in His Word. Words such as 1 John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”

“What manner of love the Father has bestowed on us?” There is the “What” we need to focus on without the “IF.” The “if” comes in, IF we would just read through His policy written in His Word. IF we would just look through our hearts we would find Him wanting to take up residency there. IF we would only believe and trust in the One that is there to get us across the finish line of life. He’s the coach at the beginning, the cheerleader along the way, the Head of the crowd that awaits us at the end. Oh what manner of love He bestows on us. Never doubt that, never lose sight of it.

Praise the Lord that it doesn’t matter IF we are skipping across the finish line or crawling on our knees. All that matters to God is that we arrive there, through our obedience, love, trust, and faith in Him.

Replacing the fears of “what if” with trusting God to heal us if we are hurt, to find us if we get lost, to pick us up if we happen to fall. We can question and doubt the cause of our stumbles and fall but we never should question God’s love for us.

We need to be like my two five-year-old boys I had in my Sunday School class this past Sunday. As they awaited their parents to arrive they stood there showing off their scars. Rolling up their pant legs, or displaying an elbow they had a story to tell for every scar. The story wasn’t about the tears they must have shed, the screaming their parents must have heard. All it was, was a “look what I got.”

We need to get across the finish line and then we can stop and compare scars. My guess is when we roll up those pant legs and display those elbows the scars won’t be there anymore. Oh what manner of love, what manner of love! It’s in our accident insurance policy with the premiums paid in full by Christ Himself.

All we have to do is sign up today for something we will receive tomorrow, victory in Jesus. No more scars, no more tears. The book of life contains our names not the tally score of how many times we stumbled and fell on our way to Heaven. “Oh what manner of love!”


© 2009 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing